Rubber Conversion receives funding boost

Rubber Conversion, based in Cerea, Italy, says it has closed a 2.5 million-euro ($2.78 million) financing round. Describing itself as startup active in rubber recycling, spanning pre- and postconsumer scrap, the company says it will the funds to expand its processing capacity and enter new geographic markets.

Financial backers in the new round include Rome-based CDP Venture Capital SGR through its Evolution Fund; Turin, Italy-based LIFTT, a venture capital holding chaired by Italian scientist and entrepreneur Stefano Buono; Swiss energy and raw materials firm ENET Energy; and what Rubber Conversion calls “a group of international business angel investors.”

Rubber Conversion was established in 2017 and patented what it calls cutting-edge industrial technology for rubber devulcanization. Compounds produced via the process are harvested from postconsumer products, including end-of-life tires, and from production scrap, the firm says.

Devulcanized materials then “can be used in significant percentages in new rubber products and goods, and represent an effective solution to optimize sustainability in the production cycle, reducing virgin raw materials use,” Rubber Conversion says.

The company maintains a partnership with Innovando, an Italian company in the industrial waste management and recycling sector. According to Rubber Converstion, Innovando “provides management compliance services, consulting, logistics and IoT (internet of things) solutions to implement end-of-life consumer product management programs and alternative fuels.”

“We are very pleased with the positive closing of this financing round,” says Francesco di Pierro, co-founder of Rubber Conversion. The funding, says di Pierro “confirms our vision of becoming an important player enabling even more sustainable strategies for rubber sector through material design and production waste management. Thanks to the new capital boost, we will strengthen production capacity, implement new business models and grow in new markets, further evolving our technology, developing our product range and strengthening our team.”

“Rubber Conversion technology represents an innovation best practice, both in terms of environmental sustainability and of raw material costs optimization, which is highly critical nowadays,” says Enrico Resmini, CEO and general manager of CDP Venture Capital.

“This is a business idea based on sustainability and lowering environmental impact that coincides precisely with our vision and our principle that economic development cannot and must not overlook the immediate context,” says Giovanni Tesoriere, CEO of LIFTT.

AG innovation served as an advisor to the transaction.