Company Growing Low Carbon Products from Waste Gets £4m Backing

Valentina Dipietro, COO (left) and Olivia Page, CEO (right)

Mykor, a biotechnology company transforming industrial and agricultural waste into scalable low-carbon construction products, has secured £4 million in funding to accelerate the scale-up of its industrial biofabrication technologies.

The latest funding round brings total investment secured by the company to £7.5 million.

The round was led by Clean Growth Fund, with participation from the British Business Bank’s South Investment Fund via The FSE Group, Green Angel Ventures, and support from Innovate UK’s investor partnership programme

Built Environment Carbon Emissions

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.

Insulation plays a critical role in reducing operational carbon, yet, according to Mykor, 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.

Growing Construction Products

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

Rather than extracting finite raw materials that can take centuries or millennia to form, Mykor’s biofabrication process grows construction products from agricultural and industrial waste streams within days.

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

Integrating in Production Lines

Mykor 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.

MykoSIP

Mykor’s first product to market, MykoSIP, a preassembled partition wall, achieves an estimated carbon saving of ~23kgCO₂e per m² compared to existing systems, equating to at least 50% carbon savings and higher when accounting for biogenic carbon storage, while maintaining comparable thermal and acoustic performance.

Mykor says, “The system is designed to reduce embodied and operational carbon without compromising on fire safety, cost, buildability or product performance. Additionally, the panels use 90% less water and 40% less electricity than their polystyrene counterparts. Mould-free and breathable, they also don’t emit toxins as they degrade like synthetic insulation products.”

Replicable Model

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

As building standards tighten, materials are becoming a critical constraint; the UK Government’s, requiring all new homes to be highly energy efficient from 2027, and the ongoing implementation of. Mykor says it’s technologies will help contractors and developers meet Future Homes Standard requirements and the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, mandating zero-emission new buildings and large-scale retrofit.