BeNewtral, 7 million for production of cement alternatives

BeNewtral, a start-up born out of PoliHub, the accelerator of the Milan Polytechnic, with a focus on the production of innovative building materials, closes a capital increase worth EUR 7 million, bringing the total funding to EUR 11 million.

The deal was finalised three months after the official market launch of ReBind, a mineral binder alternative to cement that can reduce production emissions by up to 90 per cent per tonne, cutting 98 per cent of energy and 93 per cent of water required, and eliminating mineral extraction. It is derived from the valorisation of non-hazardous industrial by-products, and developed on the basis of proprietary technology.

Lead investor in the round is Cdp Venture Capital, through the Infratech segment of its Corporate Partners I fund. Flanking him are the historical partners that have supported BeNewtral since its inception: NovaCapital, Eureka! Venture Sgr and Tech4Planet, the national technology transfer hub for environmental sustainability promoted by Cdp Venture Capital, together with a select group of private investors, including Edoardo Vernazza, entrepreneur and owner of San Colombano Costruzioni and President of Ance Giovani, and other new angel investors from the industrial, consulting and managerial worlds.

The new capital will be used to strengthen research and commercial activities, as well as to increase production capacity. BeNewtral, at the same time as the fund-raising, has in fact acquired a plant in Pavia, which will be the first pilot plant on the basis of which the next ones will be built, and which will bring the production capacity to over 25,000 tonnes per year, 'enabling the company to become the first producer of alternative binders in Italia,' reads a note from the start-up.

On the R&D front, BeNewtral will invest in the creation of a new-generation laboratory for the development of alternative binders, with the aim of becoming a scientific and industrial reference point for the sector, thanks to strategic partnerships with Italian universities and foreign research centres, and a dedicated team of about 20 researchers, engineers and technologists. On the commercial front, on the other hand, the company will invest in the development of a structured network of partnerships with important concrete producers, in order to progressively integrate ReBind into existing production chains.