As consumers demand greener and more sustainable products, companies are looking for alternative solutions, creating a thriving market for some green technology companies' products.
One example is Australia-based startup Samsara Eco, which produces and sells fossil-free polymer resins to customers that can be integrated into supply chains to replace plastic packaging and textiles with more sustainable alternatives.
Samsara took a major step forward on Wednesday, securing an additional $65 million in all-equity funding, equivalent to AU$100 million, in a funding round co-led by Temasek and Australian deep tech investment fund MainSequence. The investment, which also included participation from new and existing backers including DCVC, Hitachi Ventures, Lululemon, Titanium Ventures and Wollemi Capital, brings the total amount Samsara has raised since its 2020 founding to $73 million (AU$164 million).
Samsara CEO and founder Paul Riley told TechCrunch that a lot has changed since the company's last funding round in 2022. “We've continued to build out our library of enzymes, and now we can recycle nylon 6,6, which is notoriously difficult to recycle, in addition to polyester and nylon 6,” Riley said. “We've partnered with Lululemon and our first product is [made from enzymatically recycled polyester] It was introduced into the market earlier this year. (Nylon 6-6, also known as nylon 66, is a synthetic polymer commonly used in the textile and plastics industries.)
Samsara is building a facility in Jerrabomberra, New South Wales, and is now offering potential clients, including global brands, the opportunity to partner, test and develop with Samsara Eco, Riley said. Additionally, the company has ambitious plans to expand its North American team and secure a site for its first commercial facility in North America. The new funding will also be used for commercial facilities to be built in Southeast Asia in the coming years, with many manufacturing brands based there. “Creating a path to broader commercialization on a global scale is our focus,” Riley told TechCrunch.
Samsara's partnership with Lululemon marks the company's first textile partnership.
“With [Lululemon’s] “We've made great strides towards a sustainable fashion and circular future, and we've done it with a lower carbon footprint,” Riley said. “That's what's unique about our process – it's not just circularity, it's carbon. Being able to recycle nylon 6,6 and polyester shows the potential to give garments an infinite lifespan and ensure they never end up in a landfill again.”
The 4-year-old startup says it has seen strong demand from the apparel and consumer goods industries, and Mr. Reilly said the company's technology could be applied to other sectors, adding that automotive and electronics are on the horizon.
The organization was founded in 2020 in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), Australian supermarket and grocer Woolworths, and MainSequence Ventures to develop biological catalysts (enzymes) to create new approaches to recycling. Since then, Samsara has focused on expanding its family of enzymes for plastic recycling.
The company says this approach will enable people to keep plastic out of landfills and oceans.
“The problem with traditional plastic recycling is that plastic degrades over time or gets transformed into other products that don't rely on the structural integrity of their original form,” Riley says. “For example, when you see an item of clothing with a recycling tag on it, you're almost always seeing a product made from recycled packaging, like plastic bottles. This isn't recycling, it's just delayed landfilling.”
Alternative recycling methods, such as chemical recycling, are also bad for the environment, according to the CEO. While plastic can be recycled, the process uses heat and chemical leaching, which often produces large amounts of carbon emissions and can be worse than making plastic from fossil fuels, he explained.
Samsar's Patented Recycling Technology: EosEco™
Samsara's patented recycling technology, EosEco™, differs from traditional recycling by speeding up end-to-end recycling times and operating at lower temperatures and pressures, resulting in significantly less energy, heat and carbon emissions, with a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that is significantly lower than the carbon emissions of fossil-fuel-derived virgin plastics.
“We also have a significant lead in our ability to recycle a range of plastics, including blended and coloured polymers, and we continue to build out our enzyme library so that we can recycle even more plastics at scale in the future,” Riley said. “Hopefully, our technology will be used to recycle 1.5 million tonnes of plastic per year by 2030, preventing millions of tonnes of carbon from entering the planet.”
The latest Series A+ funding brings Samsara's total raised since its founding in 2020 to $73 million (AUD164 million). The announcement comes about a year and a half after the startup raised AUD54 million (about $34.7 million) in Series A. Samsara did not disclose its valuation.
The company has 60 staff across Australia and North America, and plans to expand its team in North America and Singapore to 90 by the end of 2025.
