AI-Powered Enzymes: A Sustainable Solution for Fast Fashion Waste

Epoch Biodesign Secures $18.3 Million Series A Funding

A startup based in the U.K., born from a high school science project by founder Jacob Nathan, has successfully raised $18.3 million in its Series A funding round, exceeding initial expectations.

The project initially focused on utilizing enzymes to decompose plastic refuse.

Company Overview and Growth

Established in London in 2019, Epoch Biodesign has grown into a team of over 30 professionals.

This team comprises experts in chemistry, biology, and software engineering.

The newly acquired funding will be allocated to expanding the production capabilities of their plastic-degrading enzymes.

Scaling Biorecycling Processes

The company intends to transition its biorecycling process from laboratory development to a dedicated production facility this year.

This facility is projected to process approximately 150 tons of plastic waste annually upon full operation.

Future Expansion and Team Growth

Epoch Biodesign anticipates achieving commercial-scale production capacity by 2028, potentially even earlier.

The startup is actively exploring methods to expedite this scaling process.

Over the next year, the team size is expected to approximately double as they intensify their efforts.

Nathan communicated this information to TechCrunch, highlighting the company’s shift towards a faster operational pace.

The Concerning Reality of Plastic Waste

The global issue of plastic waste is immense. Approximately 400 million tons are generated each year, as reported by the United Nations. Currently, only a small percentage undergoes recycling.

This is largely due to economic factors, as producing new, or virgin, plastic is often less expensive than processing existing waste. However, the environmental and health consequences of uncontrolled plastic pollution are becoming increasingly clear.

Growing Pressure for Change

Consequently, there's escalating pressure on governing bodies to address plastic pollution. Businesses utilizing plastic in their products are also facing demands for more sustainable practices.

Numerous startups are emerging, focused on innovative technologies to tackle plastic waste. These include companies employing AI to enhance plastic sorting for recycling and those creating plastic alternatives derived from renewable sources.

Epoch Biodesign and the Potential of Biorecycling

Biorecycling, which utilizes biological agents to break down resilient waste materials, is the area where Epoch Biodesign aims to distinguish itself in the fight against plastic pollution.

The biotechnology firm is creating a collection of enzymes capable of degrading plastic. Their objective is to revolutionize plastic recycling through biorecycling, fostering a circular economy.

Focus on Synthetic Fabrics

Epoch Biodesign is initially concentrating on plastics commonly found in synthetic fabrics. They have successfully developed enzymes to break down polyester, nylon 6, and nylon 66.

Their website features an animation illustrating the process. It shows waste garments entering the system, undergoing industrial sorting and pre-treatment, followed by depolymerization, purification, and repolymerization.

The final output is usable nylon (through extrusion) or polyester (in pellet form), ready for reuse.

A Circular Approach

This process demonstrates a commitment to a circular economy, where materials are continuously reused rather than discarded. It offers a potential solution to the growing plastic waste crisis.

Can Generative AI Solve the Plastic Problem?

Although naturally occurring plastic-eating enzymes have been identified, their rate of plastic degradation is exceedingly slow. This presents a significant obstacle to effectively addressing the global plastic waste crisis within a practical timeframe. Furthermore, the diversity of plastics produced currently surpasses the number of enzymes discovered capable of breaking them down.

Epoch is aiming to augment natural evolutionary processes through technological innovation, specifically by accelerating the discovery of biological catalysts that can efficiently process plastic waste. A crucial component of this endeavor lies in advancements in generative AI, particularly the emergence of robust large language models (LLMs), which are streamlining the search for targeted biological solutions.

The Complexity of Biological Systems

“Biology’s inherent complexity makes complete human understanding unattainable,” explains Nathan. “The intricacies of biological systems defy rationalization, leaving many fundamental questions unanswered. The significant advancement lies in our capacity to analyze extensive and complex datasets – a capability fundamentally enabled by AI.”

He further elaborates that their biorecycling process involves essentially deconstructing materials and then reassembling them. Remarkably, the process can transform waste fabrics into molecularly identical materials, such as nylon or polyester, ready for reuse in manufacturing new products, all within a “matter of hours.”

GenAI as a Shortcut to Enzyme Discovery

Designing enzymes is described as an immensely challenging search problem. However, by leveraging GenAI, Epoch’s researchers have been able to bypass the exhaustive process of evaluating countless amino acid and protein combinations. They achieve this by refining LLMs with data on proteins and amino acids, supplemented by “proprietary data” generated from their own laboratory research on plastic-degrading enzymes.

“Our lab has successfully generated tens of thousands of unique plastic-eating enzymes,” he states. The process involves querying AI models to identify promising candidates, followed by laboratory testing. Results from these tests are then fed back into the models to iteratively refine the search until an enzyme exhibiting the desired performance characteristics is discovered.

Accelerated Evolution in the Lab

“Essentially, we are condensing hundreds of millions, even billions, of years of evolution into a few laboratory cycles spanning days, weeks, or months,” he adds. “We are achieving substantial evolutionary leaps that would be highly improbable through random mutations and natural selection alone.”

Epoch’s AI-powered enzyme design process has consistently yielded speed improvements in enzymes, typically around 25x, according to Nathan.

Cost Reduction and Unique Approach

“This allows us to utilize less enzyme in our process,” he points out. “Reduced enzyme production lowers manufacturing costs, ultimately translating to a lower cost of goods for the final output.”

“While numerous companies are exploring biological design for various applications, we believe our approach – applying these tools specifically to recycling, and more precisely, to biorecycling – is truly distinctive,” he concludes.

A Focus on Cost-Effectiveness and Large-Scale Implementation

The company has, to date, developed three highly effective processes for recycling three distinct categories of plastics. The next crucial step involves expanding these processes to achieve commercially viable production volumes, facilitated by the recent Series A funding.

“We are currently constructing our initial production plant in the U.K., dedicated to our first nylon recycling process,” the founder states, asserting that: “These innovative technologies employ entirely novel biochemical methods, fundamentally altering the economic landscape of recycling and positioning it as a more affordable alternative to virgin plastic production.”

A significant factor contributing to Epoch’s ability to reduce recycling expenses is its process’s operation at lower temperatures. This results in substantial energy savings compared to conventional recycling methods that necessitate heating or melting waste materials. Nathan also emphasizes that this translates to reduced capital expenditure for the recycling facility, thereby lowering overall project costs.

The biological recycling method also demonstrates “exceptionally high yields” in comparison to traditional industrial recycling—with recovery rates exceeding 90%. This signifies that a large majority of the input waste is successfully converted into reusable material.

Furthermore, the biorecycling process generates no “undesirable byproducts,” which further simplifies and reduces the cost associated with plastic recycling.

“Collectively, these factors contribute to a reduction in costs throughout the entire process, enabling us to achieve cost parity with materials currently available on the market that are derived from fossil fuels,” he explains.

The production of the enzyme itself relies on a genetically modified microorganism. This organism contains the DNA necessary for enzyme creation and is cultivated within a fermenter to facilitate replication and large-scale enzyme production—a synthetic biology technique widely applied in diverse fields, including chemical production and novel food development.

Epoch’s plastic recycling approach may offer supplementary advantages, as Nathan suggests the enzymes could also facilitate additional purification. They can potentially “remove” unwanted chemicals, as some plastics contain substances that pose challenges for recycling.

He acknowledges, however, that even biorecycling of plastics will not fully address the issue of microplastics. These tiny plastic particles can be released from synthetic fabrics and enter the environment, posing risks to living organisms.

Nevertheless, he contends that the need for synthetic plastics will persist for decades, adding: “It is vital that any new synthetic plastic is created from recycled materials, rather than from newly extracted fossil carbon.”

The startup’s broader objective is to engineer enzymes capable of breaking down other types of plastic waste, such as packaging. However, Nathan indicates that their initial focus is on fabrics, given the scale of the problem and increasing public awareness. The economic viability of this approach is also more apparent.

Significantly, the startup’s Series A round includes a strategic investment from Inditex, a Spanish fast-fashion conglomerate and the owner of Zara. The two companies have also established a multi-year “joint development agreement,” demonstrating a clear commitment to enhancing the sustainability of Inditex’s operations amidst growing public scrutiny of the fashion industry’s contribution to the global plastic crisis.

“Our aim is to produce materials that are genuinely practical,” Nathan emphasizes. “We strive to create a product for brands that is indistinguishable from their current materials. To achieve this, rigorous testing is essential, and scaling up production is crucial. Collaborating with a company like Inditex, with its extensive scale, will accelerate this process.”

The Series A funding round was spearheaded by Extantia Capital, a climate-focused investment fund, with participation from Day One Ventures, Happiness Capital, Kibo Invest, Lowercarbon Capital, and Inditex, alongside a $1 million grant from the U.K. government. Epoch Biodesign has now raised a total of $34 million in funding, including the latest investment.