AmphiStar raises €6M to recycle waste

Ghent-based Bioengineering startup Amphistar has raised €6M from European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF), Qbic III and Flanders Future Tech Fund (FFTF) to derive surfactants from waste.

Surfactants play a pivotal role in everyday products such as shampoo, toothpastes, cosmetics, inks, paints, agrochemicals, food and feed and even construction materials. Over 20 million tonnes of surfactants are produced every year, of which the vast majority are relying heavily on fossil and or palm oil feedstocks and are produced using harsh traditional chemical manufacturing processes.

Amphistar produces microbial biosurfactants from locally sourced waste from the agri-food industry and supermarket food waste and uses mild and safe biological processes, similar to brewing beer, to produce them.

The funding will expedite collaborations with external partners to produce and develop AmphiStar’s biosurfactants.

The team has industrial and start-up experience across synthetic biology, process development, scale up, formulation and commercialization.

AmphiStar’s Sophie Roelants commented: “AmphiStar will revolutionize the surfactant market. We have developed a unique platform technology and are the only company in the (bio)surfactant space successfully combining a set of different key technologies: waste- and side stream technologies, synthetic biology, bioprocessing, purification and scaling expertise.

"With this capital injection and extended support of these prominent investors we will bring our unique waste based biosurfactant products to market and aim to make biosurfactants mainstream. We have had a first market introduction of one of our waste based biosurfactants with Ecover last year, showcasing the performance, safety and sustainability of our waste based sophorolipids. We are looking for more sustainable partnerships and are open to collaborate. We are also looking for enthousiastic new talent to strengthen our team.”