Bristol’s female-founded Mykor raises €4.6 million to grow low-carbon construction materials from waste

Mykor, a Bristol-based female-founded BioTech startup developing scalable low-carbon construction systems from industrial and agricultural waste, has secured €4.6 million (£4 million) in funding to accelerate the scale-up of its industrial biofabrication technologies.

The round was led by Clean Growth Fund, with participation from the British Business Bank’s South West Investment Fund via The FSE Group, Green Angel Ventures, and support from Innovate UK’s investor partnership programme. This round brings the company’s total funding to €8.6 million (£7.5 million), including €6.3 million (£5.5 million) in equity investment and €2.3 million (£2 million) in grant funding.

Olivia Page, CEO and co-founder of Mykor, said, “We’ve built Mykor around the idea that decarbonising construction cannot come at the expense of cost, performance or practicality. The challenge has never just been inventing a biomaterial — it’s been manufacturing these systems at industrial scale and integrating them into real construction supply chains. 

“This funding allows us to scale that model further alongside major contractors and manufacturing partners globally. We’re very pleased to be working with investors who understand both the urgency of the problem and the scale of the opportunity ahead”

Founded in 2021 by Page and Valentina Dipietro, Mykor transforms industrial and agricultural waste into scalable, low-carbon construction products. It combines engineered mycelium, green chemistry and industrial manufacturing processes to enable contractors and manufacturers to integrate biomaterials directly into mainstream construction systems.

According to the company, the built environment accounts for approximately 39% of global emissions, with around 11% from embodied carbon in materials and a further 28% from operational energy use. 

It further notes that although insulation plays a critical role in reducing operational carbon, conventional insulation materials are non-renewable, high-carbon and often combustible. As whole-life carbon assessments become standard, developers and contractors are under increasing pressure to reduce both embodied and operational emissions from buildings simultaneously.

Mykor has focused on solving the industrialisation challenge: how to manufacture low-carbon construction materials cost-effectively at commercial scale while meeting the fire, acoustic and performance standards required by mainstream construction.

The company explained that rather than extracting finite raw materials that can take centuries or millennia to form, its biofabrication process grows construction products from agricultural and industrial waste streams within days. 

Mykor’s proprietary technologies combine engineered mycelium strains, green chemistry additives and closed-loop automated manufacturing processes to produce an expanding portfolio of construction products, including prefabricated walls to cavity wall insulation. 

The startup highlights that rather than operating as a single-product manufacturer, it works as a technology and process platform, enabling contractors and manufacturers to integrate low-carbon biomaterials directly into existing production lines and construction systems. This model allows the company to scale through existing industrial infrastructure rather than relying solely on centralised manufacturing.

Mykor’s first product to market is MykoSIP, a preassembled partition wall. It reportedly delivers carbon savings of ~23 kgCO₂e per m² compared with incumbent systems, equating to at least 50% carbon savings, with higher savings when accounting for biogenic carbon storage, while maintaining comparable thermal and acoustic performance. 

The system aims to minimise embodied and operational carbon while maintaining fire safety, cost-effectiveness, buildability, and product performance. Furthermore, the panels consume 90% less water and 40% less electricity compared to polystyrene versions. They are mould-free, breathable, and do not release toxins upon degradation, unlike synthetic insulation products.

The company is already delivering live construction projects and reports significant commercial traction, including two large offtake agreements worth £338 million with UK and European contractors. The funding will support the scale-up of production and the establishment of a replicable model for deploying manufacturing capacity across key markets.

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