Bloom Biorenewables completes €2.9 million seed round

Founded in 2019 by Remy Buser, Florent Héroguel and Jeremy S. Luterbacher, Bloom Biorenewables (Bloom) transforms plants into renewable materials and energy to substitute detrimental petroleum-derived products. The Freiburg based startup achieves this by isolating and selectively breaking down lignin, an abundant and largely an unexploited constituent of plants, which resembles petroleum in many ways. The patented mild lignin extraction method uses stabilising molecules that prevent lignin from condensing during extraction. By June this year, the company had been able to produce batches of about one kilogram of bioaromatics.

Bloom has secured fresh capital in a new round led by Yokogawa Electric Corporation, the leading provider of industrial automation and test and measurement solutions with US$3.7 billion in sales in FY2019. The new investment brings Bloom’s seed funding round to a total of €2.9 million. The funds will enable Bloom to complete biomass fractionation pilot project, which was kicked off in January 2020 in HEIA Fribourg facilities with the support of Innosuisse, and to secure pre-sales agreements with players from textile, packaging and fragrances industries across Europe.

In addition to the investment, Bloom signed a partnership agreement with Yokogawa providing them with the rights to commercialise its technology.

This announcement builds on Bloom’s track record of winning awards such as the W.A. de Vigier Award 2020, Venture Kick finale. The startup has also received non-dilutive instruments in 2020 such as Climate-KIC accelerators, Gebert Rüf Foundation Innobooster, EPFL Tech4Impact and the Swiss Climate Foundation. Bloom is also part of the€ 5M European Union’s IDEALFUEL project developing sustainable marine fuels together with its partners including TU Eindhoven and Winterthur Gas & Diesel.

(Press release/RAN)
Photo: Clément Grandjean/Terre&Nature