Agapyo Closes First Tranche of Seed Round to Scale Jam™, a Biodegradable Drop-in Replacement for Petroleum-Based Plastics. Montreal startup’s wood-waste-derived thermoplastic matches the performance of rigid petro plastics like PP & ABS while biodegrading in the natural environment — and runs on existing injection-molding lines.

MONTREAL, QC — May 28th, 2026 — Agapyo, a materials science company that has developed a biodegradable alternative to petroleum-based rigid plastics, today announced the first close of its seed financing round with participation from TandemLaunch, Cycle Momentum, C Capital and the Conti Group. Proceeds will accelerate commercial pilots, expand production capacity, and grow the company’s engineering and business development teams.

Agapyo’s flagship material, Jam™, is a 100% wood-waste-derived thermoplastic engineered as a drop-in substitute for rigid PP & ABS — one of the most widely used plastics in consumer products, agriculture, and industrial applications. Unlike prior generations of bioplastics such as PLA and PHA, which rely on fermentation and have struggled to scale economically as well as degrade in the natural environment, Jam™ is produced through a proprietary reactive extrusion process. 

“We make wood melt,” said Michael Shore, CEO of Agapyo.  “Our innovation allows us to safely break apart the internal chemical bonds in wood, reducing its melting point.  Once we make wood melt, we can mold it into a variety of products just like conventional plastics without the public health and environmental risk”. Microplastics now appear routinely in human food, water, and is commonly found in people’s blood and brain tissue, and only a small fraction of recyclable plastic is ever recycled. 

Agapyo’s resin matches conventional ABS plastics in strength, thermal stability, and processability, requires no retooling for existing injection molders, and biodegrades at end-of-life — leaving behind no microplastics. “We have a material that doesn’t force a trade-off between performance, cost, and sustainability,” said Shore. “Jam™ is that material. It runs on the equipment manufacturers already own, can hit the price points OEMs need, and addresses what is increasingly recognized as a public health crisis — not just an environmental one. This financing lets us scale from validated pilots into commercial supply.”

Industrial demand ahead of regulatory tightening

Agapyo’s early commercial traction reflects accelerating structural pressure across the global plastics industry.  Consumer demand for more sustainable products, extended producer responsibility regulations, single-use plastic bans, and mounting OEM commitments to decarbonize material supply chains are creating urgent demand for reliable, scalable alternatives that do not require manufacturers to rebuild their production base. At the same time, governments across North America and Europe are actively investing in domestic biomaterials capacity to strengthen industrial sovereignty and meet climate targets — creating a strong tailwind for technologies like Agapyo’s. 

Designed as a B2B materials platform, Agapyo is positioning itself as a supplier and licensor to the global plastics value chain, rather than a consumer-facing brand, enabling established OEMs, brand owners, and contract molders to integrate biodegradable material into existing products and supply chains without disruption. 

“The plastics industry is ready for performant, cost-competitive and drop-in bioplastics, without the end-of-life issues created by petro-plastics. We’re proud to back Agapyo on its path to fill this gap and address the growing problems of microplastic pollution and GHG emissions. What ultimately convinced us is a rare combination of credible technical innovation and commercial validation at this early stage – it’s exactly the kind of technology we need to move beyond petroleum-based plastics.” said Jennifer McDonald, VP Investments, Cycle Momentum.

Scaling toward commercialization

The company is advancing pilots across multiple sectors, including partnerships with leading customers in its beach head market of horticulture with the application of planter pots: nurseries such as NVK, Dave Wilson Nursery, and Boething Treeland. The key focus on planter pots—an estimated $8 billion market in North America alone — provides a meaningful opportunity where conventional plastics dominate high-volume production and contribute significantly to end-of-life waste. Jam™ offers a drop-in alternative that will match plastic on cost and performance while eliminating microplastics and reducing plastic management burdens through biodegradability. These pilots represent the first of several validated programs across horticulture, agricultural rigid plastics, and consumer goods.

The company will scale Jam™ production through contract manufacturing partners, validate performance across multiple commercial pilots, and lay the groundwork for further commercial expansion. This scale-up is expected to drive significant reductions in production cost, accelerating the path to full price parity with petroleum-based ABS.

“We see Agapyo as the bioplastic supplier of the future — the partner the world needs to move beyond petroleum-based plastics without rebuilding the industrial base that depends on them,” said Helge Seetzen, CEO & Managing Partner at TandemLaunch. “The plastics industry has spent two decades cycling through alternatives that compromised on cost, performance, or scalability. What makes Jam™ different is that it runs on the equipment manufacturers already own. Injection molders, contract manufacturers, and OEMs can switch from petroleum-based ABS to Jam™ without retooling their lines, and without the capital expenditure that has historically made sustainable materials a non-starter for high-volume production. Combined with a team that has built and scaled climate-tech businesses before, Agapyo has the technology, the economics, and the leadership to define what plastics look like at global scale.”

About Agapyo

Agapyo is leading the transition to a more sustainable materials economy, starting with biodegradable plastics that don’t compromise on performance or cost. The company’s patent-pending technology converts abundant wood-waste feedstock into Jam™, a thermoplastic with the strength, thermal stability, and processability of rigid ABS — designed as a drop-in replacement that runs on existing injection-molding infrastructure and biodegrades at end-of-life. Co-founded by Dr. Monika Rak and Alina Grenier-Arellano in partnership with TandemLaunch and researchers at McMaster University, and led by climate-tech veteran Michael Shore, Agapyo serves B2B customers across agriculture, horticulture, and consumer goods.

Learn more at www.agapyo.com.

About TandemLaunch

TandemLaunch is a Montreal-based deep-tech venture studio with dedicated seed funds that partners with world-class researchers and exceptional founders to build category-defining companies from breakthrough academic IP. 

Find more: https://www.tandemlaunch.com/fr

About Cycle Momentum

Cycle Momentum is an international acceleration and innovation platform whose mission since 2015 has been to identify and support the development of cutting-edge technologies to address humanity’s major ecological challenges. 

As a member of the Cycle Capital platform, Cycle Momentum offers acceleration and open innovation programs to support entrepreneurial growth, financing, and commercialization of climate technologies. 

We establish the necessary collaborations between industrial leaders and start-ups to accelerate the commercialization of their solutions. 

Cycle Momentum invests through Origo, an investment matching program supported by the Government of Quebec. 

Find more: https://cyclemomentum.com/