Backed by Khosla Ventures and Fathom Fund, the company’s novel manufacturing technology aims to unlock scalable alternatives to traditional plastics and petrochemicals
OAKLAND – ReSource Chemical Corp., an advanced manufacturing startup, announced $15 million in funding co-led by Khosla Ventures and Fathom Fund, with participation from Chevron Technology Ventures, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company and angel investors Adam Winkel and Matt Berger.
The company is pioneering a new way to make plastics and specialty chemicals without fossil fuels, using breakthrough technology to convert low-cost renewable feedstocks, such as CO2 and agricultural waste, into naturally occurring substances that outperform traditional petrochemicals.
Enabling a better plastic alternative
ReSource’s flagship product is a platform molecule known as 2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA), which is a key building block to make PEF — a well-researched alternative to PET (the world’s second-most-used plastic, commonly found in bottles, packaging, and textiles).
PEF offers superior strength, durability, and thermal performance, along with increased product shelf life and better recycling options, all while using less material. For example, PEF provides 10x better O2 barrier, 16x better CO2 barrier, and 2x better moisture barrier than PET. Despite these clear advantages, traditional FDCA production methods have been too costly, preventing PEF from becoming a viable replacement for PET.
ReSource has developed a novel, streamlined process to make FDCA, designed to significantly reduce production costs and enable scalable manufacturing, both of which to date have been limiting factors in disrupting the over $100 billion global PET market.
The technology is based on CO2 chemistry co-invented by ReSource’s founding team at Stanford University in the lab of Prof. Matthew Kanan, who currently serves on ReSource’s Board of Directors and as Chief Scientific Advisor.
Kanan said, “We use CO2 strategically — our chemistry gives us a shortcut to FDCA that avoids the most problematic steps of the conventional methods. By cutting more than two- thirds of the process complexity compared to competing technologies, our process unlocks the full potential of FDCA as a building block for materials and a host of other applications.”
Making plastic safer for humans and the environment
As a natural substance produced in the healthy human body, FDCA can be used to make benign, non-toxic replacements for the additives used in plastics today. PEF and other plastics made from FDCA are far more biodegradable than the plastics they can replace, meaning that they break down to their original building blocks much faster.
By replacing traditional plastics with analogs made from FDCA, industries can utilize better performing materials and enable a safer and more sustainable future for plastics.
Aanindeeta Banerjee, co-founder and CEO of ReSource, said, “We envision a world where plastics have all the performance characteristics that customers expect without the environmental burden or health risks. ReSource is working to make the building blocks for the plastics of the future — sustainably sourced, all-natural, non-toxic molecules that give polymers improved properties and eliminate plastic pollution.”
Pilot plant and path to commercialization
The new funding brings total capital raised to more than $25 million, including $8.9 million in non-dilutive funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. The funds will be used to build an integrated pilot plant for ReSource’s FDCA process and to establish commercial production of other specialty chemical products made using the company’s technology portfolio.
“New materials can disrupt entire industries,” said Alice Brooks of Khosla Ventures, which also invested in ReSource’s seed round. “ReSource is unlocking the ability to reshape an entire market, making plastics and polymers safer, more performant, and more sustainable.”
“We look for breakthrough platform technologies like ReSource’s which have the potential to redefine many applications through superior cost and performance,” said Paul Sheng, Managing Partner of Fathom Fund. “The fact that it utilizes inedible biomass and CO2 as feedstocks is a nice bonus.”
View coverage of this story on Axios.