Exciting news for Matter as the scaleup announces it has successfully secured $10 million in a Series A funding round. The Bristol-based sustainability organisation specialises in pioneering technology solutions for capturing, harvesting, and recycling microplastics. This investment will enable Matter to scale its microplastic filtration technology and accelerate its roadmap of solutions for commercial and industrial applications.
The investment stream has star studded connections. It was led by S2G Ventures, the direct investment team for Builders Vision, and SOUNDWaves, the sustainability-focused investment vehicle backed by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary.
Additional investment came from Leonardo Dicaprio backed Consumer ClimateTech fund Regeneration.VC, and Katapult Ocean, which has made a significant follow-on investment via its new Deep Blue Fund since co-leading the Seed investment round, along with a small number of strategic investors.
Matter is tackling a tangible issue our planet is facing through human behaviour. Did you know that with each laundry cycle, up to 700,000 microplastic fibers are released from washing machines and into waterways? This means an estimated 171 trillion microplastic particles currently float within our oceans, and growing research suggests that microplastics are harmful to the environment, as well as human and animal health.
The team has already made big waves in this space. With the launch of Gulp, Matter brought the first sustainable, long-lasting washing machine microfibre filter to market. The product catches up to 90% of all these microfibres from every machine wash. Gulp also secured Matter’s win in taking home The Hardware Award at The SPARKies 2023.
Matter set to scale
“Matter’s vision is to live in a world without micropollutants. We are dedicated to building the necessary tools, techniques, and scalable solutions to drive this transformation,” says Adam Root, founder and CEO of Matter.
“The combined support and expertise of our investors enables us to accelerate our work”
“We knew from the start that as a small company intent on tackling this global problem, we’d need to work with partners who have the scale, vision and resources to help us deliver our technology as quickly and effectively as possible.
“The combined support and expertise of our investors enables us to accelerate our work, moving beyond laundry into industrial-scale applications of our technology, and drive globally meaningful reductions in micropollutant emissions with confidence and speed.”
Matter is working with domestic and commercial laundry appliance manufacturers to integrate its technology into their products ahead of incoming French legislation requiring new domestic and commercial washing machines to be fitted with microfibre filters by January 2025. Matter is also partnering with textile brands and manufacturers to help them better understand and prevent pollution from microfibre fragmentation in the textile manufacturing process.
Impressing investors
“As established partners of Matter, we’ve been impressed by the relentless determination and speed at which they’ve been able to develop innovative solutions and demonstrate an instant impact on the industry,” said Kate Danaher, Managing Director at S2G Ventures.
“Continued investment in solutions like the ones Matter provides are critical, if not essential, to ensuring the long-term health of our oceans, and subsequently, the overall health of our planet.”
With this funding, Matter will leverage their core technology to further develop scalable solutions capable of stopping microplastic and other micropollutant emissions from domestic, industrial and municipal water systems. The solution will capture the microplastics that would otherwise end in sewage sludge to be used as fertilizer or incinerated, enabling a fully circular solution.
“Matter’s micro-filtration technology is class-leading and represents a crucial defence against the continuous flow of microplastic pollution from our homes, workplaces and built environments” adds Katherine Keating, Managing Partner at SOUNDwaves.
Matter’s growth journey has been supported by Innovate UK project funding and bespoke growth support from Innovate UK EDGE. “Innovate UK has been an important part of our journey from inception to scale up,” says Adam.
“The first £5000 into the business paid for a living wage was co-sponsored by Innovate UK and The Princes Trust through their Young Innovator Programme. Now Innovate UK has sponsored our manufacturing program with Gulp, along with support from Innovate EDGE which so far has included networking, IP support and we’re currently working together on several scaling challenges. We look forward to continuing working with Innovate UK.”
