In 2025, innovations in advanced materials, nanotechnology, and sustainable engineering are set to transform the materials landscape for industries ranging from aerospace to healthcare. 3D printing and additive manufacturing are becoming essential in reducing waste and improving customization, while smart materials and self-healing technologies are offering durability and efficiency.
The focus on sustainability is also increasing, with biodegradable polymers and renewable composites gaining attention. These trends meet environmental challenges and provide possibilities for product design and manufacturing processes.
Global Startup Heat Map highlights Materials Startups to Watch
Through the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering over 5M+ startups, 20K+ technology trends plus 150M+ patents, news articles & market reports, we identified 58 000+ materials startups.
The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights the 10 materials startups you should watch in 2025 as well as the geo-distribution of 58 000+ materials startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. The top 5 Startup Hubs for materials are London, New York City, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Berlin.
Explore Emerging Materials Startups to Watch in 2025
We hand-picked startups to showcase in this report by filtering for their technology, founding year, location, funding, and other metrics. These materials startups work on solutions ranging from bio-based plastic materials and nano-structures battery materials to agro-waste-based leather and fermented biomaterial.
- Argenobel – Antimicrobial Nano Material
- Polaron – AI-based Material Design
- Chemia – Automated Microfurnace & Microanalyzer
- Fermbox Bio – Fermented Biomaterial
- Voltcore – Heated Polymer Filament
- Yugen – Agro Waste-based Leather
- Atacama Biomaterials – Bio-based Plastic Materials
- GelSana – Wound Healing Polymer
- Tanovus – Nano-structured Battery Material
- Cyclic Materials – Rare Earth Metal Recycling
1. Argenobel
- Founding Year: 2020
- Location: India
- Solution: Antimicrobial Nano Material
Argenobel develops Argesil, a nano-material-based disinfectant that utilizes the antimicrobial properties of hydrogen peroxide and silver nanoparticles. The formulation utilizes silver nanoparticles around 10nm in size that stabilize hydrogen peroxide and enhance its efficacy against bacteria, viruses, fungi, and spores.
Argesil’s unique killing mechanism involves silver nanoparticles penetrating bacterial cell walls, disrupting cell structure, and releasing free radicals for rapid microbial death.
It is suitable for surface disinfection, air sterilization, water treatment, and soil sterilization. This makes it suitable for diverse environments such as medical, agricultural, and household settings.
2. Polaron
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: UK
- Solution: AI-based Material Design
- Funding: £100 000
Polaron offers an AI-based material design tool that transforms microstructural image data into optimized material solutions. The platform offers AI-enhanced image processing for accurate segmentation and converts 2D micrographs into 3D reconstructions.
This eliminates the need for costly 3D imaging techniques and features process-structure prediction models that quickly predict microstructures from processing conditions that facilitate rapid design optimization.
The system enables multi-objective optimization to identify process parameters that yield materials with desired properties.
3. Chemia
- Founding Year: 2021
- Location: Canada
- Solution: Automated Microfurnace & Microanalyzer
Chemia utilizes multimodal data from high-throughput experiments and computational methods to discover cost- and energy-efficient materials.
Their proprietary platform integrates automated microfurnace and microanalyzer networks that enable the synthesis and characterization of materials under varied conditions.
The company focuses on materials for CO2 capture, waste heat recovery, and heat storage, with applications spanning the energy, aerospace, automotive, and specialty chemicals industries.
By combining extensive experimental databases with digital discovery and reinforcement learning, Chemia rapidly identifies and optimizes material properties. The platform supports rapid material synthesis, characterizing, and mapping chemical to physical properties efficiently.
4. Fermbox Bio
- Founding Year: 2022
- Location: India
- Solution: Fermented Biomaterial
- Funding: USD 2.5 million
Fermbox develops fermentation-based biomaterials for a wide range of applications, including second-generation ethanol production and bio-manufacturing. The startup’s proprietary cellulosic enzyme cocktail hydrolyzes pre-treated agricultural residues into fermentable sugars.
The technology optimizes clone expressions and bioprocesses for high recovery rates, which supports the production of alternative lipids, colors, flavors, proteins, and green chemistry products. Fermbox’s large-scale, plug-and-play facilities streamline the scale-up process and make bio-derived alternatives economically viable.
5. Voltcore
- Founding Year: 2022
- Location: Luxembourg
- Solution: Heated Polymer Filament
Voltcore is a material science startup that develops and implements advanced heating technologies. The startup creates heated polymer filament and derived products utilizing nanoparticle polymers. These ultrathin, flexible, and durable heating solutions incorporate conductive nanoparticles into polymer matrices. Voltcore’s filament provides instant heating which reduces energy consumption compared to traditional heating methods.
The technology includes its eco-friendliness, with products designed for recyclability and incorporating recycled materials, and its safety, as it eliminates risks of explosion or overheating. Voltcore’s heating solutions offer moisture resistance and secure connections and are integrated into various applications, from textiles to construction materials.
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6. Yugen
- Founding Year: 2022
- Location: Turkey
- Solution: Agro Waste-based Leather
Yugen develops sustainable biomaterials by transforming agricultural waste, specifically pomegranate peels, into eco-friendly leather alternatives. This material serves as a high-performance, ethically produced substitute for traditional leather, catering to industries such as fashion, automotive, and electronics.
The startup focuses on circular production methods, reducing the environmental impact associated with conventional materials. By utilizing bio-based processes, Yugen’s leather alternative offers a comprehensive solution that supports a sustainable future.
The material is designed to provide durability and quality, aligning with the growing demand for eco-conscious products.
7. Atacama Biomaterials
- Founding Year: 2020
- Location: USA
- Solution: Bio-based Plastic Materials
Atacama Biomaterials develops renewable plastic alternatives using cost-effective processes from diverse, local biomass. WPK is their paper-recyclable, zero-carbon packaging solution that minimizes environmental impact.
The startup utilizes AI-robotics to deliver customized polymer formulations at a pace 10 times faster than conventional methods. Their low-temperature polymer manufacturing process is energy-efficient and contributes to a significant reduction in global manufacturing emissions.
8. GelSana
- Founding Year: 2020
- Location: USA
- Solution: Wound Healing Polymer
- Funding: USD 3.1 million
GelSana develops biomaterial technologies for wound care that reduce inflammation and accelerate healing. The startup’s polymer technology creates hydrogels that are extrudable, elastic, and stretchable, adhering gently to healthy tissue without sticking to moist wounds.
Their hydrogel solutions, like Cleragel, provide moisture to wounds and absorb excess fluids, which facilitates easier and less painful dressing changes.
GelSana’s materials deliver controlled therapeutic release to promote faster tissue regeneration and reduce the risk of infection. The technology specifically addresses the challenges of chronic wounds, such as diabetic ulcers, which are prone to high inflammation and slow healing.
This solution benefits patients with hard-to-heal wounds by improving healing outcomes and reducing the frequency of dressing changes.
9. Tanovus
- Founding Year: 2020
- Location: USA
- Solution: Nano-structured Battery Material
Tanovus develops micro-nano structured materials and composites for energy applications, focusing on new battery anode products. The startup addresses the limitations of traditional graphite anodes, which have a capacity limit of 372 mAh/g, by introducing high-capacity silicon-carbon anodes with a theoretical capacity of 4200 mAh/g.
Tanovus also offers hard carbon materials optimized for fast charging. The startup’s TANO3D technology enables the scalable production of low-expansion rate silicon-carbon anodes and fast-charging hard carbon. These materials cater to the growing demand in portable electronics, electric vehicles, and other lithium-ion battery markets.
The startup uses cost-effective commodity chemicals, which ensures competitive pricing while maintaining high performance. The technologies also enable easy mass production, making them drop-in solutions for manufacturers.
10. Cyclic Materials
- Founding Year: 2021
- Location: Canada
- Solution: Rare Earth Metal Recycling
- Funding: USD 53 million
Cyclic Materials specializes in recycling rare earth magnets utilizing their proprietary technologies like Mag-Cycle and REEPure to recover critical materials. These processes transform waste into valuable resources, essential for modern technology applications such as electric vehicle motors, wind turbine generators, hard disk drives, and MRI machines.
The startup focuses on environmental sustainability by mitigating the ecological impact of mining and conserving finite rare earth elements.
Recycling rare earth magnets also enhances energy efficiency and reduces CO₂ emissions by consuming less energy compared to traditional extraction methods. This approach offers economic benefits by lowering costs for manufacturers and improving the reliability of supply chains against global disruptions.
Discover All Emerging Materials Startups
This overview highlights just a few materials solutions from 58 000+ new companies currently covered by the Discovery Platform. To explore them all, book a personalized demo or download our free Materials Innovation Report for a quick overview.
