Mycocycle announces $2.2M in funding

Mycocycle, a nature-inspired biotechnology startup operating in the waste-to-value space, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding, bringing total funds raised to $3.7 million.

Led by Anthropocene Ventures, San Francisco, the seed funding round also includes investments from the TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good, Vancouver, British Columbia;  Alumni Ventures, Manchester, New Hampshire; and Telescopic Ventures, San Francisco, among others.

With this funding, Mycocycle will expand its team with five new roles, including vice president of research and innovation and vice president of operations and product development. The company says it also plans to establish a model pilot facility to expand operational capabilities and develop its first-generation decentralized treatment container, MYCOntainer, which will increase Mycocycle’s capacity to serve customers beyond their work sites. Leveraging the new capital, Mycocycle anticipates validating its biobased byproduct by the third quarter of 2023.

Since launching, Mycocycle has treated 12,000 pounds of material via paid pilots with customers across the waste management, recycling and manufacturing sectors, as well as with building owners and contractors such as META and Lendlease, which aim to reduce their Scope 3 emissions.

As efforts ramp up to limit global warming to 1.5 C increase, the waste sector represents a key opportunity to make progress toward global emission reductions, the company says. In the U.S. alone, construction and demolition (C&D) produce 660 million tons of waste annually, which is more than twice the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced per year. With landfills at 85 percent capacity and global construction on the rise, there is a need to divert waste within the C&D industry and drive circularity.

“In the global race to decarbonize the economy and prevent the planet from warming at devastating levels, waste management cannot be overlooked, nor can the power of nature-based solutions to create a brighter, more sustainable future for all,” Mycocycle founder and CEO Joanne Rodriguez says. “The completion of this seed funding round underscores Mycocycle’s readiness to scale and become a leading provider of low-carbon waste management solutions that function in harmony with the natural world. We’re primed to leverage mushrooms, the planet’s recyclers, across the nation’s waste and building materials sectors to reduce emissions in two of the heaviest-polluting industries and transform waste into resources.”

Mycocycle, Bolingbrooke, Illinois, says it is addressing waste mismanagement by transforming industrial waste into new raw materials. Mycelium is a fungal root structure that is fire and water-resistant, insulative and lightweight, making it an ideal material for manufacturing acoustic tile, flooring, concrete, walls and insulation, Rodriguez says.

Through its patent-pending technology, Mycocycle optimizes the natural functions of fungi to detoxify and transform waste within the built environment, such as asphalt shingles, insulation board, crumb rubber, gypsum drywall, fibers and other hard-to-recycle building materials. The materials Mycocycle treats contain petroleum-derived chemicals such as heavy hydrocarbons or plasticizers which might leave a legacy of environmental contamination when burned or buried. The process neutralizes toxicity while transforming materials into renewable, low-carbon, mycelium-based raw material, the company says. Mycocycle’s transformative process drives circularity in the construction supply chain, diverts waste from landfills and reduces the need to extract virgin materials from nature, the company adds.

The three-phase process, which takes about two weeks, starts by blending lab-cultivated fungi with ground waste materials, allowing it to incubate and grow over seven to 14 days, at which point it is harvested and processed into new low-carbon raw materials, such as fillers and fibers used within the building products industry. Mycocycle’s solution reduces the toxicity of materials by up to 98 percent on average. The global mycelium market is expected to reach $3.84 billion by 2026, and Mycocycle says its solution is positioned to create a new market of biobased raw materials out of waste for the building materials industry.

“At Anthropocene Ventures, we invest in firms that bring our economy into alignment with the ecology of the planet. Mycocycle’s innovative, waste-diverting solution, reflects that commitment and demonstrates that a world with less landfills and more synergy with nature isn’t just possible, it’s profitable,” says Matt McGraw, general partner at Anthropocene Ventures. “In the continued fight against climate change, we’re proud to support Mycocycle’s journey as the company addresses an enormous opportunity for decarbonization and circularity within the waste management, construction and manufacturing industries.”