Cleantech company Tipa raises $70 million for compostable flexible packaging

Israeli cleantech company Tipa, which develops compostable flexible packaging, announced on Sunday that it has raised $70 million in its Series C, led by Millennium Food-Tech and Meitav Dash. Millennium invested $4 million in the round and will hold a 3.3% stake following the round, while Meitav Dash invested $26 million.

Tipa was founded in 2010 by Daphna Nissenbaum and Tal Neuman. Tipa has raised $130 million in total since it was founded, with its last round in February 2020 seeing it raise $10 million from foodtech R&D partnership Millennium Food-Tech. Among the company's investors are the likes of Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-Shing's Blue Horizon Ventures, the Hearst family, and GreenSoil Investments.

TIPA’s packaging is able to emulate the robust properties of conventional plastic in protecting food and other goods. Yet, at its end-of-life, the products decompose and return to nature via composting, just like an orange peel, leaving zero waste behind.

The company focuses on the $103 billion market of consumer flexible plastic, while the vast majority of these packages are not fit for recycling, and less than 4% is recycled globally. Foreseeing the massive growth in the market demand for compostable packaging to replace hard-to-recycle plastics, TIPA has developed a wide range of patent-protected packaging solutions for applications such as fresh produce, fresh bakery, dry food, and apparel packaging. Multiple brands and retailers in the food and fashion industries have adopted TIPA’s solutions including Waitrose, Woolworth, Riverford Organic Farmers, Pangaia, and Scotch & Soda, among many others.

TIPA is also engaged in multiple strategic partnerships with industry leaders in its supply chain. It recently signed a partnership agreement with AMCOR, the world's largest plastic packaging manufacturer. The partnerships aim to provide compostable packaging solutions for the packaging market in Australia and New Zealand.

“Our encounter with plastic packaging waste in our everyday lives has become a constant alarming reminder of the crisis we face as humanity,” said Daphna Nissenbaum, CEO of TIPA. “New solutions that move beyond plastic and beyond the failure of the recycling industry are required to solve this crisis. In recent years, we have witnessed a sharp increase in the demand for sustainable packaging solutions from consumers, while compostable packaging solutions repeatedly are reported as the No 1 choice of consumers around the globe. TIPA’s packaging offers an answer for brands and consumers who want functional, sustainable, and organically recyclable substitutes for packaging that leave no waste behind. This round of funding is designated to support the company’s rapid growth and to enable a broader response to the growing market demand and continue to position TIPA as a world leader in compostable packaging solutions.”