From high school science project to $18.3M: AI-accelerated enzymes are coming for fast fashion’s plastic waste
Summary
A U.K. startup, originating from founder Jacob Nathans high school science project on using enzymes to break down plastic waste, has secured an oversubscribed $18.3 million in Series A funding.Founded in 2019 in London, Epoch Biodesign is now a 30+ strong multidisciplinary team of chemists, biologists, and software engineers. Theyll be roughly doubling the size of the team over the next 12 months as they work on switching to a higher gear, he tells TechCrunch.Stepping back for a second, the worlds plastic waste problem is staggeringly vast, with some 400 million tons of the stuff produced annually, according to the UN. So the big shift here has been our ability to understand large, complex datasets which is effectively AI.Were just sort of un-baking the cake and then putting things back together at the other end, he also says of what this biorecycling process boils down to. He adds that it only takes a matter of hours to go from waste fabrics to reclaiming molecularly identical material (nylon or polyester) in a form thats ready for reusing to make new clothes or other products.He describes enzyme design as a ridiculously large search problem to tackle. The business case also looks cleaner.Notably, the startups Series A includes a strategic investment by Spanish fast-fashion giant Inditex, owner of clothing brand Zara, which has inked a multi-year joint development agreement with Epoch clearly with an eye on improving the sustainability of its business at a time of rising public awareness vis-\xe0-vis the fashion industrys role in the global plastic crisis.We want to produce material thats actually useful, notes Nathan.