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.
Key takeaways
- Jam™, Agapyo’s flagship material, is a 100% wood-waste-derived thermoplastic that matches rigid PP and ABS on strength, thermal stability and processability, and biodegrades at end-of-life with no microplastics.
- Unlike PLA and PHA bioplastics, Jam™ runs on existing injection-molding lines with no retooling, at price points OEMs need.
- The seed round backs commercial pilots in horticulture, a planter-pot market Agapyo estimates at $8 billion in North America alone.
What makes Jam™ different from PLA and PHA bioplastics?
Jam™ is produced through a proprietary reactive extrusion process from wood waste, not fermentation. That distinction matters: prior generations of bioplastics such as PLA and PHA rely on fermentation, have struggled to scale economically, and in PLA’s case typically need industrial composting facilities to break down rather than degrading in the natural environment. Jam™ was engineered as a drop-in substitute for rigid PP and ABS, among the most widely used plastics in consumer products, agriculture and industrial applications.
“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”.
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.”
How the main material options compare for a manufacturer running rigid-plastic production today:
- Jam™ (Agapyo) — made from wood waste through reactive extrusion. Biodegrades in the natural environment with no microplastics, runs on existing injection-molding lines with no retooling, and targets cost parity with ABS at scale.
- PLA — fermented from crops like corn and sugarcane. Typically needs industrial composting to break down, has a narrow processing window on standard equipment, and costs more than commodity plastics.
- PHA — produced by bacterial fermentation. Biodegrades well, including in marine environments, but demands careful thermal management in processing and has struggled to scale economically.
- Petroleum ABS — the fossil-based incumbent and the commodity cost baseline. Persists in the environment at end-of-life; only about 9% of plastic waste worldwide is ever recycled.
Sources: OECD; Sales Plastics, PLA vs PHA technical guide; Agapyo company data.
Why is demand for plastic alternatives accelerating?
The numbers behind the plastics problem keep getting harder to ignore. Only 9% of plastic waste worldwide is ultimately recycled (OECD, Global Plastics Outlook), and microplastics are now found routinely in human food, water and tissue. Research published in Nature Medicine found microplastic concentrations in human brain samples rose about 50% between 2016 and 2024 (Nature Medicine).
Supply is nowhere near demand. The world produces about 431 million tonnes of plastics a year, and bio-based plastics represent roughly 0.5% of that; even with production capacity forecast to double from 2.31 to about 4.69 million tonnes between 2025 and 2030, bioplastics would still cover around 1% of global output (European Bioplastics). Closing a gap that size is not a fermentation-plant problem, it’s a drop-in problem: the winning materials will be the ones existing factories can adopt without new capital equipment.
Regulation is tightening on the same schedule. Canada’s Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations have phased out six categories of single-use plastics since 2022, and the Federal Plastics Registry, whose reporting began in September 2025, expands in 2026 to cover agriculture and horticulture products, precisely the categories where Agapyo’s first pilots run. Provincial extended producer responsibility programs came online across Alberta, Nova Scotia and British Columbia through 2025-2026, shifting end-of-life costs onto producers. Add consumer demand for sustainable products and OEM decarbonization commitments, and the pressure on petroleum plastics is structural, not cyclical.
Designed as a B2B materials platform, Agapyo positions itself as a supplier and licensor to the global plastics value chain rather than a consumer-facing brand, so OEMs, brand owners and contract molders can integrate biodegradable material without disrupting existing supply chains. Governments across North America and Europe investing in domestic biomaterials capacity for industrial sovereignty give technologies like Agapyo’s an additional tailwind.
“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.
Why start with planter pots?
Horticulture is Agapyo’s beachhead market, and the logic is sharp. The company estimates the North American planter-pot market at $8 billion, a high-volume segment where conventional plastics dominate production and contribute heavily to end-of-life waste. A biodegradable pot doesn’t just remove waste, it removes a workflow: nurseries and growers currently pay to collect, sort and dispose of used plastic pots, and a pot that composts eliminates that burden entirely.
The regulatory timing compounds the case. With Canada’s Federal Plastics Registry adding agriculture and horticulture products to its reporting scope in 2026, growers and their suppliers are about to account publicly for the plastic they put on the market. Agapyo is already piloting Jam™ pots with nurseries such as NVK, Dave Wilson Nursery, and Boething Treeland, the first of several validated programs planned across horticulture, agricultural rigid plastics, and consumer goods.
Scaling toward commercialization
The company will scale Jam™ production through contract manufacturing partners, validate performance across multiple commercial pilots, and lay the groundwork for further commercial expansion. 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.”
A studio-built startup in Cycle Momentum’s portfolio
Agapyo follows a path Cycle Momentum has backed before: deep-tech companies built from academic research and co-financed at seed stage. The investment was made through Origo, Cycle Momentum’s investment matching program supported by the Government of Quebec, which has previously co-invested alongside TandemLaunch Ventures, notably in ChillSkyn’s sustainable cooling technology. Agapyo joins a portfolio of materials and green chemistry startups tackling industrial decarbonization from the molecule up.
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: tandemlaunch.com
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, and invests through Origo, an investment matching program supported by the Government of Quebec. Discover the startups Cycle Momentum supports.
