November 2023

The results of the Hessian Founders Prize for Innovative Business Idea 2023 competition were announced on Friday 17 November at an Award ceremony broadcast live on YouTube, with the Prize presented to Akribion Genomics.  CO2BioClean were a finalist in the category.

“We might not have won the prize”, said company founder Dr Fabiana Fantinel, “but we are proud of our achievement in being shortlisted among just three candidates for the final. Congratulations to Akribion Genomics on their success.”

“Thank you to all those who voted for us and to BMH Hessen, EIC Fund and Ghazan Commodities for investing in CO2BioClean. And, of course, thank you to our colleagues and to the organisers of the Hessian Founder’s Prize competition for this wonderful initiative in support of innovative start-ups and their work towards creating a green economy around the world.”

“We will maintain the momentum to demonstrate the potential of the CO2BioClean process, and to scale it up to maximise its impact in reducing emissions from industrial processes and the use of fossil in the production of consumers products.”

-ENDS-

About CO2BioClean:

• Founded in 2019 by Dr. Fabiana Fantinel and Dr. Alessandro Carfagnini, CO2BioClean is an innovative start-up based in Eschborn, Germany, developing a fermentation process that converts carbon dioxide into biodegradable polymers. Having collaborated on various research topics over the last eight years, with a focus on producing biodegradable plastics or polymers from circularly sourced feedstocks, they discovered that carbon dioxide could be used as a resource to make PHA. Given that CO₂ is an unwanted emission in many industrial processes, the idea emerged that using it for the production of biopolymers was a win-win scenario: reducing unwanted CO₂ emissions and creating biodegradable polymers and plastics that can be used in various applications.
• The technology developed by CO2BioClean consists of an advanced and proprietary process based on fermentation, through which carbon dioxide gas becomes biopolymers (PHA) that can be used to make biopolymers for consumer markets. The fermentation units are installed alongside industrial structures and cause no change to the processes themselves, capturing emissions at the end of a pipe to be transformed into PHA.

About the Hessian Founders Prize

• The Hessian Founder’s Prize, which is organized as part of the Hessian Founder’s Days, is aimed at those interested in starting a business and founders, young entrepreneurs and experts in start-up support as well as company successors. The project, which consists of three components, the Hessian Founder’s Prize, start-up events and a conference of the Hessian start-up sponsors, aims to…
  – inform and raise awareness of the topic of “starting up”,
  – create a forum for the exchange of experiences between experts in start-up support,
  – Strengthen start-up support networks in Hesse,
  – to help more people build an independent existence and be successful
  – provide an impulse for the regional start-up climate.

For further information, contact:
Jocelyne Bia, media@co2bioclean.com
www.co2bioclean.com