UCD spin-out PlasmaBound completes €2.35m funding round
Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
University College Dublin spin-out PlasmaBound has raised €2.35 million in its latest funding round.
This investment was led by Act Venture Capital, and supported by the Atlantic Bridge University Fund, Enterprise Ireland and a number of private investors.
The funding will allow the engineering company to accelerate their vision of sustainable lightweight materials being a standard feature on vehicles, devices and structures globally.
PlasmaBound’s Controlled Polymer Ablation (CPA) technology helps manufacturers reduce the weight of products and meet fuel efficiency and carbon emissions requirements, and has applications for vehicles, devices and structures.
“Our technology is about getting more renewable, lightweight materials into use faster as we seek a more sustainable carbon-reduced future,” said Alan Barry, PlasmaBound CEO.
“We are excited to continue our rapidly accelerating journey toward enabling these materials to be standard on vehicles, structures and devices.
“Right now this is limited by cost and complexity to only high-tech applications, or premium price points, with limited real environmental impact. Pushing recyclable composites into mainstream mass-production will move the dial on all our efforts for a sustainable tomorrow. This funding signals confidence in this opportunity.”
John O’Sullivan, General Partner, Act Venture Capital, added: “The level of real world plasma control achieved with CPA will let industries use composites ubiquitously, cost effectively and creatively – it will enable a big step forward in composite material use. Something I think the sector has been waiting for.’’
PlasmaBound previously raised €1.1m in June 2020, led by Atlantic Bridge - a global technology investment firm with over €1.3bn invested in more than two dozen companies in Europe and the US.
Headquartered at NovaUCD, PlasmaBound was co-founded in 2017 by Dr James Nicholas Barry, Alan Barry and Xavier Montibert as a spin-out from the UCD College of Engineering and Architecture following the completion of Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Funding.
By: David Kearns, Digital Journalist / Media Officer, UCD University Relations (with materials from Micéal Whelan, UCD Research and Innovation)