Oxford-LBS startup raises £1.5m to replace polluting superabsorbents
Replacing plastics in hygiene and agriculture with nature-based innovation
A&B Smart Materials, an Oxford-based materials science startup and 2023 London Business School CleanTech Challenge winner, has closed a heavily oversubscribed £1.5m ($2m/€1.7m) Pre-Seed round. The company is developing fully biodegradable superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) for hygiene products and agriculture, aiming to replace the synthetic SAPs responsible for persistent microplastic pollution.
SAPs, the key materials in disposable nappies, menstrual products, and soil water retention, form a $9.1bn market projected to reach $17.6bn by 2035. Today’s fossil-based SAPs are highly absorbent but non-biodegradable, accumulating in soils, waterways, and oceans. A&B’s novel biopolymer formulations are designed to deliver comparable performance and cost while remaining environmentally safe.
The funding will accelerate R&D to optimise SAP formulations and demonstrate industrial-scale production for hygiene and agricultural applications. Investors include existing backer Sake Bosch, alongside Caesar, Living Hope VC, Archipelago Ventures, Triple Impact Ventures, Cranfield University Seed Fund, Oxford Seed Fund, and leading angels from Oxford and Cambridge networks.
Co-founder and CEO Amaury van Trappen said: “This funding gives us the momentum to accelerate our progress and deliver sustainable absorbents that will benefit millions, marking a key milestone in transforming an industry that urgently needs change.”
A&B operates from Oxford’s Begbroke Science Park, leveraging world-class labs to advance rapid experimentation and material optimisation. The team’s long-term goal is to make biodegradable SAPs the new standard across a $17bn market, supporting both environmental sustainability and regulatory compliance.
About the CleanTech Challenge The CleanTech Challenge is a global business pitch competition organised by students for students with innovative clean technology ideas. It is jointly hosted by the London Business School (LBS), with the support of the School's Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital (IEPC), and University College London (UCL) to help students develop their clean technology ideas into credible businesses. It began in 2011 and has grown in significance and stature. The competition promotes an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together technical and business students to develop their ideas with the help of industry expert mentors. This year over 100 students across 23 nationalities entered the CleanTech Challenge, including its regional competition hosted by the Dutch and Belgium delegations, with 45 ideas. The top eight teams from the CleanTech Challenge and the two winners of the regional competitions came to London Business School to workshop their ideas with mentors over two days and pitch live to a panel of investors and entrepreneurs. With the generous support from Gore Street Capital and the Lindsay-Fynn Trust, teams competed for a chance to win £20,000.
In 2023, a former Rolls-Royce thermal engineer, and an expert in nanotechnology and smart materials, won the CleanTech Challenge (CTC) with their novel cooling solution for solar panels. Amaury van Trappen de Buggenoms and Benjamin White are founders of A&B Smart Materials, a revolutionary company developing cooling technologies for a wide range of applications using novel smart hydrogels. Their passive cooling technology, the proposition that helped them win the CleanTech prize in 2023, is transforming many industries using technologies requiring thermal control solutions, such as photovoltaic panels, EV batteries, electronic components, specialised clothing, and cosmetics.
To read the story of A&B Smart Materials' original CleanTech Challenge original win, click here
Photograph: Amaury van Trappen de Buggenoms and Benjamin White, co-founders of A&B Smart Materials.