B4Plastics Turned EIC Accelerator Cash Into Degradable Polymers

B4Plastics, a polymer design company in Dilsen-Stokkem in Belgian Limburg, says it makes plastics that are as strong as polyamides and polyesters but break down when their use is over, at a speed it can set from years to days. In the Green Deal round of the EIC Accelerator pilot, with its cut-off on 19 May 2020, the European Commission selected the company, then listed in Maasmechelen, for a grant-only award. The project, B4PNOW, received an EU contribution of €803,507 towards a total cost of €1,147,867.50 and ran from 1 December 2020 to 30 November 2022, according to CORDIS. The EC list names no partner company for the project.

The application did not lack ambition. It said B4Plastics would "become the first unicorn bioplastics company (>1 billion € turnover) in the world in 2030", and it named STIHL, Huntsman, Capri-Sun, Lankhorst Euronete Portugal, Nike, 3M and Patagonia as existing customers. Two years after the grant ended, the EIC Fund became a shareholder. The company is active, but the volumes it promised are not yet visible.

Where B4Plastics Stands Now

The company is active and in normal legal standing, according to the Belgian company register (KBO), which lists its NSSO activity as the manufacture of other plastic products. It filed its 2025 accounts with the National Bank of Belgium on 15 July 2026; Companyweb shows the same figures.

Its latest news is about products with named partners. On 23 April 2026 it announced that brooms with FORTAN bristles, a biopolymer it says breaks down "up to 100 times faster" than conventional synthetic bristles, were on the market, made by the brush maker Jobo Borstelfabriek. In June 2026 its quarterly update added COMPOST3D 2, a home-compostable compound sold as 3D printing filament by FormFutura, and ECO COINS supplied again to the Pukkelpop festival. Renewable Carbon News carried the same three items. FormFutura's product page credits B4Plastics with the compound, claims at least 60% biodegradation within 150 days in a managed home compost and lists a 1 kg spool at €26.86. The degradation claims for both products are the companies' own; no independent test was found.

In November 2025 the company published a case study on a biodegradability pre-screening platform built with the testing firm Normec OWS for Ahlstrom's fibre-based food packaging, a service rather than a material sale. No sales volumes or customer revenues have been published for any of these products.

The Technology: Plastics Designed to Disappear

Most plastics on the market are either durable and persistent, like polyamide and polyester, or degradable but weak. B4Plastics designs condensation polymers whose backbones combine peptide, ester, acetal, urethane and carbonate links, according to its final project report. The choice of links sets how strong the material is in use and how fast microbes can break it down afterwards. The company's term for this is circularity "on demand": a product that can be collected is designed for recycling, one likely to end up in the environment is designed to degrade.

The project grouped the materials into two families. FortePlastics were to combine high strength with full degradability, for fishing gear, technical textiles, protective and sports gear, mulch mats and shade nets. TriggerPlastics were to degrade quickly and under control, for fertiliser coatings, plant clips, personal care products and tablet fillers, according to a 2024 CORDIS results article. Since then the company has presented its materials under product brands instead: a January 2024 company post lists FERTILAN for fertiliser coatings, SOLUBAN as a water-soluble film, LUBRAN as a substitute for PEG and RHEOLAN as a rheology modifier. The company has not said which of these belong to which project family. The claim that its polymers "have beaten world records in strength versus degradation" comes from the company's own CORDIS summary and could not be verified independently.

What B4PNOW Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

B4PNOW was to take the technology from technology readiness level 6 to 8, launch FortePlastics and TriggerPlastics, and turn B4Plastics from an R&D company into a commercial supplier. The final report, covering December 2021 to November 2022, lists what was done: the Series A round closed, an HR adviser, an R&D programme manager and a production and purchasing manager were hired, office space grew, and production equipment was "being commissioned, expected to start operations in 2023". It also says a degradable elastomer line, later branded RUBRAN, began sampling in the second quarter of 2022, and that brand owners had tested both families. It names no supply agreement. CORDIS records one patent application from the project, for "a polymer and a product or article comprising or consisting of the polymer". The project ended on its planned date.

The 2024 CORDIS article says demonstration facilities in Limburg were "under way" and that the company expected its first multi-tonne orders "by 2026". No such order has been announced by the company or by a customer, and no supply agreement with any of the seven brands named in the application could be found. A March 2023 report by VRT NWS, on the company winning Voka Limburg's Innovation Award 2022, described a research centre with about 20 staff and plans for a production hall across the street. Whether that hall has been built is not public.

1. Launch FortePlastics and TriggerPlasticsPartlySampling to brand owners per the final report; products sold since 2026 under other brand names.
2. Become a commercial supplierPartlyFORTAN brooms and COMPOST3D 2 filament on sale in 2026; volumes not published.
3. Production equipment running in 2023Not shownNo announcement that own production started.
4. First multi-tonne orders by 2026Not achievedNo order announced by the company or a customer.
5. Raise growth capitalDelivered€5.96M Series A in December 2022.
6. Grow the teamDelivered7.7 to 20.9 full-time staff, 2020 to 2023.

The Series A and the EIC Fund

On 7 December 2022 the German aerosol valve maker LINDAL Group announced that it had taken an equity stake as lead investor, "accompanied" by the European Innovation Council. B4Plastics' own announcement named the EIC Fund as co-investor, and the Spanish trade title Alimarket reported the deal in January 2023. None of them gave an amount.

The notarial deed of the same day, published in the Belgian Official Gazette on 20 January 2023, does: LINDAL Group Holding GmbH paid €3,398,000 for 2,035 new shares and EIC Fund S.A. paid €2,562,592 for 1,535, a total of €5,960,592. The filed 2022 accounts show the contributed capital rising from €409,600 to €5,981,052. The EIC Fund also lists B4Plastics in its portfolio. After the round the founder still held 18,175 of 22,170 shares; the deed also created six anti-dilution subscription rights, and any later change to the shareholding is not public.

The board changed with the money. Gazette notices from April 2023 and August 2023 show an investor director nominated by LINDAL and, from March 2023, an independent chair, a company represented by Bénédicte Haven. That company resigned as director and chair with effect from 4 August 2026 and published the resignation itself, after the company had not done so, according to a notice of 5 October 2026. No successor has been published.

The Money

Before and during the EIC project B4Plastics was small and profitable on paper: net profits of €247,996 in 2019 and €270,946 in 2020 on gross margins of €593,382 and €920,127, according to the filed accounts at the National Bank of Belgium. 2021 brought a loss of €255,885 and 2022 a profit of €1,118,719 on a gross margin of €2,590,814. Since then the company has lost €1,286,624 in 2023, €1,176,189 in 2024 and €1,939,064 in 2025, while the gross margin, the only top-line figure in its abbreviated accounts, fell from €1,154,394 in 2024 to €661,723 in 2025.

Those losses have consumed most of the Series A. Equity fell from €7,501,311 at the end of 2022 to €3,099,435 at the end of 2025, with €818,651 in cash and investments and €1,998,743 of debts. No new funding round has been announced since 2022.

Why Europe Should Care

The EU has restricted the use of microplastics. In September 2023 the Commission adopted rules on intentionally added microplastics that it says will prevent the release of about half a million tonnes into the environment, covering uses such as fertilisers and cosmetics that B4Plastics targets with FERTILAN and SOLUBAN. A material that does the job of a synthetic polymer and then degrades fits that policy.

The EU is also cautious. Its policy framework on biobased, biodegradable and compostable plastics, adopted on 30 November 2022, says biodegradable plastics should be used only where they offer "proven, net-positive environmental outcomes", warns that vague claims risk encouraging littering, and notes there is no general standard for marine biodegradation. For B4Plastics this cuts both ways: the market it wants is real, but each claim about degradation in soil, compost or water will have to be proven against standards.

The Verdict

B4Plastics has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.