Cambridge-based Sparxell, a plant-based colourant technology start-up, has secured 1.9 million euros in funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC).
The fresh injection of capital will help the LVMH-backed University of Cambridge spin-out scale its world-first, natural colourants, as it looks to transform the 48 billion US dollar colourants market.
Dr. Benjamin Droguet, founder and chief executive of Sparxell, said in a statement: "This European Innovation Council funding is transformative for Sparxell, allowing us to accelerate our manufacturing scale-up and overcome key technical challenges much earlier in our development pathway.
"With our plant-based technology, we're offering industries a fundamentally different approach to colour that works with nature rather than against it while meeting the highest performance standards."
Sparxell is a member of LVMH’s La Maison des Startups accelerator programme and the prestigious RESPOND Accelerator by the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, and the EIC grant will help the company to scale up to tonne-level production in preparation for its first commercial launch with leading brands and manufacturers.
Sparxell secures additional funding to scale up operations to transform colourant market
Since spinning out of the University of Cambridge in 2023, Sparxell has gained rapid commercial validation through over 25 fully funded pilot projects with global brands across diverse industrial sectors and has reached its first million in sales.
The success has been driven by Sparxell’s biodegradable pigments that deliver stunning colourant results that outperform synthetic alternatives, without fossil-based chemicals, taking instead inspiration from nature to create colour.
Its proprietary technology transforms cellulose from readily available materials, including wood pulp and agricultural waste, into vibrant colour solutions that exceed the performance of synthetic dyes in colour intensity and durability, while being completely non-toxic and biodegradable.
In fashion, the technology significantly reduces energy and water consumption compared to conventional textile dyeing and printing. It also eliminates toxicity in human-contact applications such as cosmetics and food applications, while enabling large-scale recycling and circularity across industries, such as packaging and paint.
Last autumn, Sparxell expanded its Cambridge headquarters capacity, enabling kilogram-scale production to accelerate innovation and meet increasing market demand. The biotech firm is now planning further expansion of its facilities this year, aiming to double production capacity and establish production laboratories.
This is the latest round of funding for the British company, in April 2024, the plant-based pigment-maker closed 3.2 million US dollars in funding, made up of seed investments, grants and awards, saw support from anchor investor Circular Innovation Fund, a venture capital fund managed by Demeter and L’Oréal’s Cycle Capital.