COL­IPI Receives EUR 1.8 Mil­lion Seed Funding

The con­clu­sion of the Seed fund­ing round marks a sig­ni­fic­ant suc­cess for the Ham­burg-based deep-tech star­tup COL­IPI GmbH as it embarks on the year 2024. Investors include the High-Tech Gründer­fonds (HTGF), the Innov­a­tionsstarter Fonds Ham­burg (IFH), Nidobirds Ven­tures GmbH, and Stefan De Loeck­er. With this, COL­IPI moves a sig­ni­fic­ant step closer to its vis­ion of ​“Fer­ment­ing Renew­able Car­bon For Gen­er­a­tion­al Life Qual­ity”.

“Labor­at­ory exper­i­ments provide com­pel­ling evid­ence that our gas fer­ment­a­tion pro­cess rep­res­ents a break­through in biopro­cesses, offer­ing sig­ni­fic­ant poten­tial to pro­duce bio­ma­ter­i­als, includ­ing oils, on a large scale at com­pet­it­ive prices and with min­im­al envir­on­ment­al impact. Cli­mate Oil aims to emerge as a car­bon-neut­ral altern­at­ive to palm and crude oil, facil­it­at­ing indus­tries in meet­ing cli­mate goals more effort­lessly by redu­cing GHG Scope 3 emis­sions and safe­guard­ing the envir­on­ment. Our ongo­ing com­mu­nic­a­tion with Stefan De Loeck­er, HTGF, Innov­a­tionsstarter Fonds Ham­burg, and Nidobirds, par­tially dat­ing back to 2021, has been instru­ment­al, and we are thrilled to have iden­ti­fied them as the ideal part­ners for our upcom­ing endeavors.”

Max­imili­an Webers, Co-Founder & CEO at COL­IPI

The start-up foun­ded in 2022, a spin-off from the Tech­nic­al Uni­ver­sity of Ham­burg, sup­por­ted by the EXIST Research Trans­fer Pro­gram (Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Cli­mate Action) and the InnoRampUp Pro­gram (IFB Innov­a­tionsstarter GmbH), is revo­lu­tion­iz­ing the way oil is pro­duced. COL­IPI is, in a sense, a brew­ery for oils. Car­bon is sourced or filtered from the air rather than pumped from the ground. CO2-con­tain­ing indus­tri­al emis­sions and organ­ic by-products, for example, from the agri­cul­tur­al industry, are con­ver­ted by microor­gan­isms through fer­ment­a­tions into valu­able bio­ma­ter­i­als like Cli­mate Oil. The oil is more sus­tain­able than crude oil and palm oil, con­sid­er­ing the CO2 foot­print and its impact on biod­iversity. It is enabled by a pat­en­ted biopro­cess, a com­bin­a­tion of a spe­cially designed gas fer­ment­a­tion biore­act­or and the world’s fast­est CO2-con­sum­ing bac­teria. Indus­tri­al part­ners offer­ing products such as cos­met­ics based on Cli­mate Oil will be able to sig­ni­fic­antly reduce their cor­por­ate CO2 foot­print. The founders, Phil­ipp Arbeit­er, Tyll Utesch, Jonas Heuer, and Max­imili­an Webers, aim to pro­duce many mil­lions of tons of Cli­mate Oil annu­ally by 2039, avoid­ing mul­tiples of that amount in CO2 emis­sions. This will be an act­ive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate pro­tec­tion and, con­sequently, humanity’s well-being. The recently com­pleted Seed fin­an­cing is anoth­er mile­stone for the young com­pany. The cap­it­al will be util­ized to expand the team, test the mar­ket with products man­u­fac­tured by part­ners, and scale the technology. 

„The founders of COL­IPI, with their high tech­nic­al expert­ise in bio­tech­no­logy and truly innov­at­ive approaches to sus­tain­able solu­tions for a sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenge, serve as a prime example of the poten­tial of the bioeconomy.”

Dr. Nik Raupp, Seni­or Invest­ment Man­ager at HTGF

“I look for­ward to future col­lab­or­a­tion with the team at COL­IPI. This tech­no­logy has the poten­tial to replace a mass-pro­duced product at an accept­able price, thereby mak­ing a real impact.”

Dörte Bunge, Prin­cip­al at Innov­a­tionsstarter Fonds

„Tech­no­logy trans­fer from uni­ver­sit­ies occurs not only through dir­ect industry col­lab­or­a­tions, pub­lic­a­tions, pat­ents, and gradu­ates but also via star­tups. Tech­no­lo­gic­al solu­tions, such as those developed by COL­IPI, are essen­tial to mit­ig­ate cli­mate change. We are pleased that, as a found­ing uni­ver­sity, we have been able to lead a series of suc­cess­ful star­tups in green tech­no­lo­gies through our star­tup hub, Star­tup Port @ TUHH. We extend our heart­felt con­grat­u­la­tions to COL­IPI on this addi­tion­al fund­ing and are happy to accom­pany them on their con­tin­ued jour­ney!”

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Timm-Giel, Pres­id­ent at TU Ham­burg

„The innov­a­tion from COL­IPI can make a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate pro­tec­tion, espe­cially because the eco­nom­ic viab­il­ity of the tech­no­logy is attract­ive. This issue has been close to my heart for years, and the enthu­si­asm of the COL­IPI team is con­ta­gious.”

Stefan De Loeck­er

“COL­IPI aligns per­fectly with our value invest­ing philo­sophy. For us, the qual­ity of the found­ing team always takes pre­ced­ence, and this team has con­vinced us.”

Nich­olas Keu­per, Man­aging Dir­ect­or at Nidobirds Ven­tures