Samsara Eco founder and CEO Paul Riley
Samsara Eco, an Australian company using advanced, enzymatic recycling to end plastic pollution, has raised US$65 million in its latest funding round led by Temasek and Australian deep-tech investment fund Main Sequence.
New and existing backers, including Wollemi Capital, lululemon, Hitachi Ventures, Titanium Ventures (formerly Telstra Ventures) and DCVC, also participated.
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The capital will be used to build new commercial facilities in Southeast Asia in the next few years. These facilities will recycle millions of tonnes of plastic waste, such as discarded textiles and packaging, to produce monomers (the molecular building blocks of plastics), which will be turned into brand-new products.
Samsara Eco will also scale up its global team of chemists, engineers and technicians and increase its library of plastic-eating enzymes.
Paul Riley, CEO and founder of Samsara Eco, said: “Our enzymatic recycling technology makes it easy for brands in almost every industry to meet their sustainability and decarbonisation goals by creating a circular loop for plastics.”
Launched in 2020, Samsara Eco has developed a new way to break plastic down to its core molecules, which can then be used to recreate brand-new plastic again and again. Its patented process, EosEco, uses a combination of biophysics, chemistry, biology and computer science (such as AI) to create a family of plastic-eating enzymes. The enzymes break down plastic waste (like textiles made from nylon and polyester) into raw materials, which are then integrated into existing manufacturing processes to create new products.
Samsara Eco recycles all forms of plastics, which can be used within existing cross-sector supply chains like automotive, electronics, and consumer packaged goods.
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“EosEco reduces the end-to-end recycling time, while also operating at a lower temperature and pressure to ultimately reduce waste and carbon emissions. By solving the circularity piece of the puzzle for all plastics, we’re making it possible to imagine a more sustainable future,” added Riley.
Since its inception, Samsara Eco has raised more than US$106 million from local and global investors, including Breakthrough Victoria, DCVC, Greycroft, Hitachi, lululemon, Temasek, Wildcard Ventures, and Wollemi.
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Image Credit: Samsara Eco.
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