We are excited to share what is probably our biggest news so far: traceless receives a grant and equity investment from the European Innovation Council (EIC). The €2,42 million grant will allow us to scale up our technology quickly, and bring our novel naturally compostable biomaterial to market fast. With only 65 selected companies from 4.000 applicants in 2021, the EIC Accelerator programme is the most competitive public funding scheme for deep tech startups at the moment. What a great recognition of our invention - and a huge step forward on our mission to offer a solution for global plastic pollution!
“The proposed innovation represents a true breakthrough in the field of plastic materials as it combines a circular and sustainable approach, based upon agricultural waste, innovative transformation steps, and final characteristics of the materials, which are beyond the state of the art and will bring a fully biodegradable solution in many sectors. The combination of biodegradability with specific thermomechanical, barrier and compatibility properties, can generate relevant market opportunities, especially from the packaging industry.”
EIC evaluation committee about traceless' application
Further acceleration of our technology scale-up We are proud and happy, as this is a great acknowledgement of all our achievements over the past year! Since our founding in september 2020, we have put all our motivation and ambition into moving traceless forward, and so much has already happened: we have successfully raised a seed investment, grown and established our team, started the development of several prototypes (e.g. an e-commerce shipping bag with OTTO), and built our first pilot production plant to realize first market pilots. The EIC funding is another amazing milestone, and we will use it to further accelerate our scale up. We plan to build a demonstration production plant, which will enable a first market entry for traceless materials. When hearing about the successsful application, our whole team was beyond excited and enthusiastic - we all can't wait for this next step of our journey to start!
“Receiving the EIC Accelerator support is a clear recognition of the innovative nature and high potential of traceless’ technology, and the amazing work our team has done over the past year. The funding enables us to speed up our development even more, and bring traceless to market fast – so that we can make our contribution to solve global plastic pollution!”
Dr. Anne Lamp, CEO and founder of traceless
What is the European Innovation Council (EIC)? The EIC is Europe’s new flagship innovation programme to identify, develop and scale up breakthrough technologies and game changing innovations. The programme was officially launched in March 2021 - after a successful pilot phase - as a major novelty under the Horizon Europe programme. With a budget of over €10 billion, the programme supports game changing innovations throughout the lifecycle - from early-stage research to proof of concept, technology transfer, and the financing and scale up of start-ups and SMEs. By investing in new solutions for the health, environmental and societal challenges faced, the EIC aims to bring Europe to the forefront of innovation and new technologies.
What is the EIC Accelerator?
The EIC Accelerator is the EIC's programme for individual Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). It supports them to develop and scale up their game-changing innovations. Since March, over 4.000 start-ups have sent their ideas, and only 65 companies were selected for this batch. This makes the programme the most competitive public funding scheme for deep tech startups at the moment. The total budget of €1.1 billion in 2021 provides substantial financial support to each selected company. It offers grant funding of up to €2.5 million for innovation development costs, and direct equity investments of up to €15 million for scale up and other relevant costs. In addition to financial support, EIC selected companies receive coaching, mentoring, access to investors and corporates, and many other opportunities as part of the EIC community.
Read the official EIC press release here, where you can also find a full list of all other supported start-ups: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_5225
