Plastic recycling is broken! Plastics account for up to 4.5% of global GHG emissions, yet only 9% are recycled globally. Traditional mechanical recycling struggles with mixed plastics, lowering the polymer’s quality with each cycle. Chemical recycling requires high temperatures, sometimes above 500°C, making it energy-intensive and expensive. As a result, most recycled plastics become lower-value products destined for landfills within years. That’s where Epoch Biodesign comes in.
Their biorecycling technology fully recovers the material’s value, creating high-quality chemicals at price parity with fossil carbon-derived alternatives. For apparel brands, Epoch’s technology offers the ultimate solution for switching to recycled materials, helping companies meet strict recycling mandates while lowering raw material costs.
Today, this London-based company — which uses enzymes to make recycled plastics cheaper and higher performing than virgin material — raised £18.3M in an oversubscribed Series A round. The funding was led by Extantia Capital, with participation from Inditex (Zara’s parent company), Lowercarbon Capital, Happiness Capital, Kibo Invest, Day One Ventures and others, alongside a $1M grant from the UK government. Epoch Biodesign has raised a total of £34 million in funding to date; the valuation wasn’t disclosed to TFN.
The funding will be used to build their first plant, expand their library of plastic-eating enzymes, and begin serving some of the largest textile customers in the world from the fashion, automotive, and chemicals industries. The company aims to process tens of thousands of tonnes of waste by 2028.
Breaking the plastic cycle: How Epoch Biodesign addresses this challenge
Epoch Biodesign was founded in 2019 by Jacob Nathan (CEO) and Douglas Kell (CSO) with the mission to scale and industrialise biology to solve significant climate challenges. Plastic pollution has become a major environmental issue, with hundreds of millions of tons of plastics produced annually and only about 10% recycled. The company develops engineered enzymes that efficiently break down plastic waste into recyclable materials and everyday chemicals.
Jacob Nathan developed the idea for Epoch Biodesign while working on a high school project exploring solutions for plastic waste. He reached out to Douglas Kell, a world leader in systems and synthetic biology, through a connection with Nathan’s great uncle—who had worked with Kell in the 1990s on applying machine learning to biological systems.
Epoch Biodesign’s approach combines enzyme engineering using AI and biochemistry, a proprietary computational platform for designing plastic-eating enzymes, and cell-free fermentation processes to convert plastics into valuable chemicals. The company aims to reduce dependence on fossil resources, lower carbon emissions from chemical production, and create a profitable plastic upcycling system.
Jacob Nathan, Founder and CEO of Epoch Biodesign, said: “We’re proving that plastic waste isn’t just a problem to solve—it’s a valuable resource waiting to be unlocked. Using the molecular precision of enzymes at an industrial scale, we’re building the solution set to make all plastics recyclable and doing so at a competitive price. This is what real circularity looks like.”
The technology arrives as California enacts legislation requiring apparel companies to handle end-of-life recycling, with similar regulations gaining traction in the US and Europe. Additionally, Inditex and Epoch are working together through a multi-year joint development agreement to ensure the technology meets their rigorous performance standards.
AI-driven enzyme engineering
Epoch Biodesign combines cutting-edge AI with biology and chemical engineering to design custom enzymes that break down various plastic waste. Their proprietary computational platform enables them to create blueprints for tens of millions of different enzymes, use machine learning algorithms to optimise enzyme performance, and iterate rapidly — achieving “billions of years of evolution in a matter of weeks.”
Nathan told TFN, “Epoch Biodesign creates ‘supercharged enzymes’ to break down the toughest plastics at near ambient conditions in a process similar to natural decomposition. Our approach is low-energy by design, doesn’t require any toxic chemicals, and can process mixed or impure plastic waste streams back into valuable, virgin-grade feedstocks.”
In essence, the company’s enzymatic process is highly adaptable. It can break down different types of plastics, including those currently unrecyclable. The process can be tuned to produce specific chemicals from consumed plastic and works on complex materials like blended nylon, enabling infinite recycling of textiles.
Transforming the value chain of plastic
“Plastic has a bad reputation, but the problem isn’t the material — it’s how we use and dispose of it. Plastic can be one of our most efficient and sustainable materials when designed, sourced, and recycled responsibly. And that’s what Epoch is doing,” said Yair Reem, Partner at Extantia. “They aren’t just developing better recycling – they’re transforming the entire value chain to ensure it works for the planet, not against it.”
Nathan concluded,” Epoch will use the funding to build their first plant, expand their library of plastic-eating enzymes and begin serving some of the largest textile customers in the world from the fashion, automotive, and chemicals industries. The company aims to process tens of thousands of tonnes of waste by 2028. We have over 40 partnerships across performance apparel, automotive, luxury fashion, and technical textiles industries, including a multi-year joint development agreement with Inditex.”
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