Technological watch

Insempra, a biology-powered company enabling businesses to make superior products with nature, announces today that the company has been awarded a substantial Eurostars grant as a consortium comprising one academic and three industrial partners across three European countries. The consortium was highly recognized, ranked second out of the 216 total, grant-winning European consortiums, and was awarded a total funding amount of €2,1M. 

Insempra enables businesses to transform their ingredient lists with superior products made in collaboration with nature. Environmental issues, consumer demand, and regulatory restrictions are changing the ingredient landscape dramatically. The FMCG and fashion industries are under immense pressure to shift to sustainable alternatives. Insempra’s advanced technology platform enables the production of superior natural ingredients on an industrial scale to help the world’s leading brands transform their products. 

Eurostars is the largest international funding program for SMEs collaborating on R&D projects that create innovative products, processes, or services for commercialization. Eurostars is part of the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs, which is co-funded by the European Union through Horizon Europe. The aim of European Partnerships is to deliver on global challenges and modernize industries across Europe. 

Besides Insempra based in Germany, the consortium is comprised of Gecco Biotech (Netherlands), and Zymvol Biomodeling (Spain), who are joining forces with the University of Groningen to combine their expertise to research and develop an innovative and scalable fermentative biomelanin production process and make it available to the market. The project will be funded over a period of three years.  

Traditionally, melanin is challenging and resource-intensive to produce. A common way to obtain natural melanin is its non-vegan extraction from sepia ink or bird feathers, which limits its scalability . Due to its novel nature as the first biotechnologically produced vegan melanin product and its broad application areas, industries like personal care and food & beverages, could benefit from this new bio-pigment. One possible application could be vegan sunscreen products that are high-protection and sea-friendly.  

“We are excited to have the opportunity to collaborate with our consortium partners and drive the production of truly superior bioengineered functional ingredients, such as biomelanin,” says CEO and Founder of Insempra, Jens Klein, “This collaboration will enable us to develop a scalable process for the fermentative production of biomelanin to empower businesses to replace synthetic and animal-derived ingredients with sustainable alternatives.” 

About Insempra Insempra GmbH Insempra is enabling businesses to transform their ingredient lists with superior products made in collaboration with nature.  

Environmental issues, consumer demand, and regulatory restrictions are changing the ingredients landscape dramatically. The beauty, personal care, food & nutrition, and fashion industries are under immense pressure to shift to sustainable alternatives. Insempra’s advanced technology platform enables the production of superior natural ingredients at an industrial scale to help the world’s leading brands to transform their products.