AmphiStar secures €12.5m EIC funding to bring its biosurfactants to market
Belgian start-up impresses with sustainable microbial biosurfactants, upcycled from a bio-based waste feedstock
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Belgian biosurfactants developer AmphiStar has been awarded €12.5m in funding following the European Innovation Council’s (EIC) latest evaluation round. The award follows a highly competitive multi-stage application and interview process, which saw EIC consider nearly 1000 proposals from European startups, and recognises the strong technological proposition and business model AmphiStar has developed over several years.
The blended funding takes the form of a €2.5m grant and a €10m equity investment. AmphiStar is one of only 40 selected beneficiaries sharing nearly €230m in support, all recognised for their transformative technologies with strong commercial potential. The funding will enable AmphiStar to speed up the production of sustainable microbial biosurfactants, upcycled from a bio-based waste feedstock, and ultimately bring them to market.
The new funding follows €12m previously raised through CBE-JU projects (Waste2Func, SurfsUP), regional grants (VLAIO) and the early and disruptive support of the German SPRIN-D and Ghent based Biotope in addition to a pre-series A funding round closed in 2024 by three experienced VC funds (ECBF, Qbic, PMV).
"This funding success enables us to take the next steps in AmphiStar’s journey to commercialisation. We now look forward not only to further scaling production of our commercially available products (AmphiCareⓇ and AmphiCleanⓇ), but also to bringing a first novel biosurfactant from our biosurfactant platform technology to market while expanding our range of products beyond our current personal care and home care offerings.” said AmphiStar COO Sophie Roelants.
AmphiStar’s synthetic biology platform is designed to enable the creation of molecules tailored to meet the performance and behaviour requirements of specific applications. By upcycling bio-based waste and side streams as feedstocks for its fermentation process, AmphiStar offers a cleaner alternative to common synthetic surfactants. It also avoids the use of virgin crops such as palm oil or sugar as feedstock, whose cultivation is associated with deforestation and habitat loss while requiring extensive inputs of land, chemicals and fossil resources.
This success within the highly competitive open EIC call affirms the technological excellence of AmphiStar’s team and is a testament to EIC’s belief in AmphiStar’s ability to redefine surfactants using bio-based alternatives.
"This funding reflects the confidence that EIC has in AmphiStar’s ability to transform one of the key chemical markets. With growing consumer pressure on industry to offer less harmful products, the financial support ensures that we will continue to lead the way in replacing environmentally damaging synthetic surfactants with bio-based alternatives that retain functionality and performance while being kind to people and our wider ecosystem." said AmphiStar CEO Pierre-Franck Valentin.
The environmental sustainability of AmphiStar’s biosurfactants was confirmed by a recent Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) which demonstrated that their production results in a fourfold reduction in global warming potential compared to non-upcycled sophorolipids, a sixfold reduction compared to synthetic Sodium Laureth Sulfate, and a 9.5-fold reduction compared to Amine Oxides. Additionally, they require significantly less water and land and have substantially decreased impacts on human health, ecosystem quality and resource availability.
In July 2024 AmphiStar released its first biosurfactant products for the home and personal care markets (AmphiClean™ and AmphiCare™), and this year unveiled its growing library of over 80 biosurfactant molecules, suitable for a wide variety of applications. AmphiStar built on these successes by signing a strategic agreement with Illinois-based surfactant manufacturer Kensing to bring its biosurfactants and production technology to the North American market and is finalising agreements with European counterparts – more news to follow in the near future.
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