Making compostable film cost the same as plastic: Why we've invested in BZERO

Polyethylene is the most widely used plastic in the world. More than 100 million tonnes of it are produced every year, and it turns up in almost everything you buy. The bag around your bread, the sticker on your apple, and the net holding a bag of oranges. It's cheap, strong, and thin, but it doesn't biodegrade. A film used for a few minutes stays in the environment for hundreds of years.

With new EU packaging rules mandating that single-use items like produce bags and fruit labels must be compostable, millions of tonnes of packaging now require a sustainable replacement.

The current alternatives often fail (they are either too expensive or lack the durability of standard plastic.)

BZERO is closing this gap. They make a home-compostable film that behaves exactly like conventional polyethylene, reaching standard strength at just 7 microns thick, at the same cost. BZERO didn't set out to build a premium product for those willing to pay extra for their conscience; they set out to remove the reason for industry to say no

Why we backed them

When we first looked at BZERO, the market was full of bio-based materials that demoed well and priced badly. The hard part in this field was never inventing a compostable polymer. It was matching plastic on cost and performance at the same time, at the thinness these products actually need.

Most founders in deep materials science either over-invest in R&D and run out of runway before reaching commercial scale, or rush to market with a product that isn't ready. They have consistently made product decisions in response to what the market actually enforces: cost parity, processability on existing industrial lines, the right certifications, rather than building toward a technically elegant solution that no manufacturer wants to run. That combination of scientific rigour and commercial discipline is rare. It's also what has allowed a team to go from pilot production to commercialization.

The round

We've just led BZERO's latest round, an oversubscribed €1.5M seed, bringing total investment in the company to €2.5M. CTL Investments and Torribas are returning from earlier rounds, and Viscofan and Impact Shakers Ventures join as new investors. The capital goes toward scaling production and getting the film to the producers who now, by law, will need it.

Europe's new rules will make compostable packaging mandatory for millions of these thin plastic items. Until now, a material that could meet them at scale, at the same cost and the same strength, didn't exist.