AberInnovation’s BioAccelerate programme was brought to a close last week with an expert panel deciding to award two £50,000 innovation grants to PlantSea and Conwy Kombucha.

After extensive deliberation the panel chose PlantSea, a seaweed-based bioplastics start-up, and Conwy Kombucha, producers of a range of health-beneficial teas as the winners.

PlantSea was founded by Aberystwyth University PhD student Gianmarco Sanfratello and Aberystwyth alumni Alex Newnes and Rhiannon Rees. Conwy Kombucha’s Director Mark Pavey is currently pursuing a PhD at Aberystwyth University’s Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS).

Both winners will continue to work with AberInnovation and other relevant organisations as they seek to further develop their products and scale up their activities.

Commenting on their success, PlantSea Co-founder Rhiannon Rees said: “We started with a simple idea to reduce the amount of single use plastic in our community. Winning this award means we can continue our research and move towards commercialisation. The team at AberInnovation have been invaluable in their support on this journey and we are excited to take our next steps in making seaweed derived bio-materials a viable alternative to plastic.”

Mark Pavey, Director at Conwy Kombucha and currently studying for a PhD in Bioethics and Agriculture at Aberystwyth University’s Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, said: “Growing a new business in a global pandemic is clearly challenging. Winning this grant allows us to continue to do this in partnership with AberInnovation and IBERS through our next scale-up period and beyond. Many thanks are due to the BioAccelerate team for providing such targeted advice and mentorship throughout the project.”        

The BioAccelerate programme saw sixteen entrepreneurs/teams reduced to the final two over the course of two phases of investment-readiness acceleration and incubation. A wide variety of disruptive and promising business propositions benefitted from the workshops, mentoring and group activities provided by BioAccelerate. 

Support will continue to be offered to the four other finalists who also pitched to the expert panel. Among the highly innovative shortlisted propositions were a novel prebiotic derived from Miscanthus (elephant grass), an online platform for biospecimen supply to increase efficiency and transparency in biotech research, a bioderived filtration system for water remediation, and a novel technology in the cell-based meat space.

Dr Rhian Hayward MBE, Chief Executive Officer at AberInnovation, said: We have seen some innovative and highly competitive proposals during BioAccelerate this year. The BioAccelerate alumni of entrepreneurs and start-up businesses are proof without doubt that Wales has some remarkable technology-based businesses in food, biorefining and the circular economy with great potential to grow quickly and create high quality jobs. Many congratulations to PlantSea and Conwy Kombucha and we look forward to working with them and the other finalists.

Now in its third year, BioAccelerate has a track record of accelerating the growth of early-stage companies and start-ups in Wales and beyond. ARCTIEKBio and Shire Meadery, who were members of earlier cohorts, are now tenants at the AberInnovation Incubator Building. It was announced this week that ARCITEKBio have been shortlisted for Best Green Business at the Wales Start-up Awards 2021.

AberInnovation recently finalised its procurement activities to realise the full potential of its £43.5m investment in mid-Wales. The final piece of the jigsaw was the completion of equipment commissioning in the Future Food Centre and Advanced Analysis Centre. These translational facilities join the existing operational Biorefining Centre, Seed Biobank and Innovation Hub to provide a development hub for collaborative agri-food and circular economy R&D.

With its capabilities complete, staff at AberInnovation will continue expanding the Campus’s R&D project pipeline as well as offering contract research, bespoke technical training, and a range of start-up incubation and investor-readiness services to innovative companies in its sectors. 

Contact: Ben Jones, Marketing and Partnerships Manager, AberInnovation, bej13@aber.ac.uk