MBA Polymers Obtains $15 Million in Funding to Expand its Operations

MBA Polymers Inc., based in Richmond, Calif., reports that it has completed its recent round of equity funding, raising around $15 million. The funding has increased the company’s most recent financing to around $40 million. The funding has been led by Ambienta I, Europe’s largest private equity fund that specializes in environmental investments.

MBA says that proceeds from the funding will be used to support its existing operations and growth plans, including building new factories in Europe and Asia. The company presently operates facilities in China, Austria and the United Kingdom.

Along with the investment, Ambienta I will become a minority shareholder in MBA Polymers. Additionally, Nino Tronchetti Provera, CEO and founding partner of Ambienta SGR, will be added to MBA Polymer’s board of directors.

MBA Polymers has developed a process to recover high-value plastics from complex waste streams. The company says its process allows it to extract plastics from items such as household appliances, computer and business equipment and automobiles. The company recovers and separates plastics from each other and from the residual waste. MBA says the result is more energy efficient plastics at a quality level that can be virtually indistinguishable from virgin resins.

In a release, MBA Polymers notes that its processes require one tenth of the energy and natural resources of traditional plastics factories, resulting in reduced incineration and landfill.

“We believe that Ambienta will provide strong strategic and operational value to MBA given its investment objectives and geographical location,” says Richard McCombs, CEO of MBA Polymers. “With Ambienta SGR’s investment, MBA will be able to continue our aggressive growth to meet our customers’ needs for high quality post-consumer recycled plastic. Ambienta SGR is an active investor, and we are delighted that Nino Tronchetti Provera will be joining MBA’s board of directors.”

Nino Tronchetti Provera, CEO and founding partner of Ambienta SGR, notes the following: “Plastic not only accounts for almost 10 percent of the worldwide consumption of oil, but also has the lowest recycling rates of all high value basic materials and represents probably the most problematic to handle as a waste. This is the reason we have been following MBA Polymers progress in the last years, and we believe that what the company has achieved is really remarkable, particularly looking at 2010 results.

“Here is a global platform with already three plants plus a few more to come, blue chip customers, an outstanding management team and a very strong and supportive group of investors. Furthermore, not only does MBA Polymers represent a clear environmental breakthrough, but it also makes a lot of sense from an industrial point of view, being able to produce plastics with negligible correlation to the price of oil. It therefore fits in our strategy of focusing on companies delivering real fundamental environmental and economic value, with no technology risk but strong and solid growth potential. I really think that Ambienta SGR will be able to help MBA Polymer’s management in the transformation of this great potential into financial results.”

Also taking part in the recent funding has been Keating Capital Inc., a Colorado-based venture capital firm. The firm has reported that it has invested an additional $900,000 in MBA Polymers, one of its existing portfolio companies. In its announcement, Keating says that the investment is part of an extension of MBA Polymers' Series G Convertible Preferred Stock financing in which a total of about $14.6 million was raised. Keating Capital had previously invested $1.1 million in the initial closing of the company's $25 million financing round in October 2010.

Commenting on its increased investment, Timothy Keating, Keating Capital’s CEO, says, “As our assets under management increase, we will be correspondingly increasing the average size of our new portfolio company investments. In the case of MBA Polymers, we were pleased to have had the opportunity to add to an existing position within our portfolio."