Re-Match in first wave of companies spearheading EUs green recovery plan
– and receives grant of €2,5 mill.
In its efforts to become the first zero-emission continent, the EU has laid out its European Green Deal Strategy and recovery plan resulting in the funding of 64 game-changing technology companies across the 26 EU member states, UK, Norway and Switzerland. These companies have been deemed to hold technologies that have the potential to accelerate the global green transformation, while creating jobs and wealth. Re-Match is part of this first wave of EU funding with a grant of €2.5 mill.
The 64 companies selected represent innovative solutions for the automotive, aerospace and maritime sectors as well as Internet of Things-technologies and processes contributing to circularity of high value material.
“We are immensely proud to be singled out yet again as one of the European companies driving the green technological transformation needed to keep Europe in the lead on sustainability,” says CEO of Re-Match, Nikolaj Magne Larsen and continues: “We initially established the company, based on an ambition to create a technology process able to convert an annual waste stream of artificial turf, that last year alone represented 57,4 bill. plastic bags, into high-value recycled goods. With this grant the EU will be supporting the next innovation level, which will enable us to close the loop and not only recycle but enable the industry to produce new pitches from used recycled polymer fibres.”
Already commercially active in the Nordics, Benelux and Germany, Re-Match attracted private equity growth fond Nordic Alpha Partners in 2019. This has led to an accelerated factory roll-out which will extend commercial activities to France, UK and North America in 2021 and clear path to 24 operational factories globally. Together these recycling facilities will be able to convert 1,5 mill. tons of waste and save the world from 2,4 mill. tons of CO2 annually. With the Re-Match core business model supported by private equity, it was the development of a sustainable manufacturing model for production of fibre using recycled plastics from artificial turf that caught the attention of the European Innovation Council.
The new EU grant does not come as a great surprise to Re-Match’s chairman and partner in lead investor, Nordic Alpha Partners, Laurits Bach Sørensen: “As someone who is presented to many investment cases in the cleantech space every month, I can only say that it is very rare to see a company that can convert a waste stream of this magnitude to high value products, create jobs and wealth – and do so on free market terms.”
Although there may not be many companies like Re-Match at this point in time, the EU Green Deal initiative draws attention to and financially promotes the vision that it is possible, through technological innovation, to create transformative solutions to pressing societal and environmental challenges. This strong signal and the sizable grants could help bring more solutions forward.
“I believe that Re-Match is a strong representative of ‘Economic Sustainability’ where the war against climate change is forged – not by introducing subsidies or new regulation – but through the introduction of ground-breaking technologies that ensure the preservation of resources without negatively impacting society’s economic foundation”, Laurits Bach Sørensen concludes.
