The company just landed a £320K pre-seed funding, which £95K came from Innovate UK ‘Combined Investor Partnership’ grant landed through SETsquared’s highly successful Regional Angel Investment Accelerator (RAIA) programme and the rest was from Bristol Private Equity Club (BPEC) and other angel investors. Over the last year the company has been developing solutions in the laboratory to replace single-use fossil fuel plastics with high-performance bioplastic made from seaweed.“This landmark investment enables Kelpi to advance its work as one of just a handful of companies worldwide using seaweed to create entirely new bioplastic packaging solutions,” said Kelpi co-founder and CEO Neil Morris. Scale up development of bioplastic packagingKelpi will use the funds to scale up the development of prototype bioplastic packaging that is compostable, marine-safe and carbon-negative. Already, Kelpi has sourcing agreements in place with seaweed suppliers in Europe, as well as Asia where most of the world’s seaweed is currently cultivated. Bath-based Kelpi is a sustainable biotech startup that focuses on bio-refining seaweed to make bioplastic packaging that is home compostable and marine safe. Kelpi is a great company that will now benefit from the combined funding of committed angel investment and grant-funding to further their exciting and vital work to replace fossil fuel plastics in packaging in the UK and worldwide.”Packaging with lowest recycling rates