Where Colorifix's EIC Accelerator Bacterial Dyes Stand Today

Dyeing one kilogram of fabric can take up to 200 litres of water and a cocktail of salts, alkalis and synthetic dyes made from petrochemicals. Colorifix, a University of Cambridge spin-out incorporated in March 2016, proposed a different route: copy the DNA that makes colour in plants and insects into harmless microbes, grow them on sugar-rich waste such as molasses, and let the microbes deposit and fix the pigment on the fabric inside an ordinary dyeing machine.

The European Commission's list of winners of the 3 April 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, part of the Horizon 2020 EIC pilot, names Colorifix of Cambridge as the only beneficiary of its project. The grant only award brought an EU contribution of €2,467,561.25 towards a €3,525,087.50 project to build a pilot production plant, according to CORDIS. Six years later the plant was built, production has moved to Portugal, H&M and Inter IKEA are shareholders, and annual sales are still below £1 million.

Where Colorifix Stands Now

Colorifix is active. Companies House lists it as an active private company whose filing history shows group accounts for 2025 filed on 24 August 2026, share allotments in March, May and July 2026, and a board change in September 2026. Its centre of gravity has shifted to Portugal. The 2025 accounts say research and development moved from the company's Cambridge site to Portugal in April 2025, "coupled with a reduction in personnel", and that the group cut its fixed costs by more than 50% from the first half of 2025. Norwich Research Park's case study of the company says its R&D facility moved to Portugal's textile hub in 2026 and that Colorifix kept only a "Virtual Tenancy" at the park, which remains its registered office.

The commercial model, as the accounts describe it, has three parts: selling "plug-and-play" bioreactors of 300 and 3,000 litres to dye houses together with recurring growth media, licensing its technology to mills for a share of revenue or a fee per kilogram of fabric, and selling concentrated dyes made in its own plants in Portugal and India to textile printers. A 3,000-litre unit is being trialled with outsourced manufacturing in India.

The money has come mostly from the fashion and furniture industries. A $3 million Series A in December 2018 was led by Challenger 88 with Cambridge Enterprise, H&M CO:LAB and Primera Impact, according to Cambridge Network. In May 2022 H&M CO:LAB led an £18 million Series B with Sagana, Bombyx, PDS Ventures, Regeneration.VC and SynBioVen, according to Cambridge Enterprise and FashionUnited. In June 2025 the company announced a $18 million first close of a Series B2 round led by Inter IKEA Group, with H&M Group Ventures, Sagana, Regeneration.VC, Goldwin Play Earth Fund, the Ljungstrom family office and Youngone CVC, according to Just Style and Norwich Research Park. The filed accounts date the money earlier: the subscription agreement was signed on 31 December 2024, £9.0 million had arrived by the end of that month, and an Inter IKEA manager joined the board the same day, according to the 2024 accounts and the register of officers.

The Technology: Pigments Grown, Not Synthesised

Conventional dyeing has two polluting stages. The dye itself is synthesised from hydrocarbons, and the dyeing step then needs hot water, salts, caustic soda and repeated rinses to fix the colour and wash out what did not bind. Colorifix's final report to CORDIS describes the alternative: genes for pigment production are taken from organisms such as plants and insects and put into non-pathogenic microbes, which are grown in a fermenter on waste sugars, produce the pigment, and carry it onto the fibre. The project summary on CORDIS says the process works in standard dyeing machines and avoids the cost of extracting and purifying pigments, which is what sets it apart from approaches that make a natural or bio-based dye first and then apply it the conventional way.

The limits are as relevant as the promise. The microbes are genetically modified, so each site needs genetic modification licences, and the media and strains have to pass EU REACH rules and OEKO-TEX certification, the 2025 accounts note. The colour range is still narrow: the same accounts say Colorifix now has "three colours, yellow, blue and magenta" that can be mixed on polyester, a tenfold yield gain on blue that makes medium to light shades cost competitive, and a black formulation for printing.

What the EU Grant Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The project ran its full 30 months, from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2022, according to CORDIS, and its final report says "all tasks and deliverables were completed successfully", while adding that much of the detail is confidential. It set four objectives: a pilot line with daily fermentation capacity of 0.2 to 0.4 cubic metres and dyeing capacity of 20 to 100 kilograms of fabric; genetic pathways for ten new colours reaching lightfastness scores of 3/4 to 4/5 under ISO 105-B02; dyeing up to 100 metres of fabric a day in the pilot plant with pigments fermented on site; and early commercialisation.

1. Pilot production lineDeliveredCORDIS reports a line with the planned capacities; Colorifix's January 2023 announcement places the plant in Cambridge.
2. Ten new colours meeting ISO lightfastnessNot shownThe company's own summary names pink and brown pigments; the 2025 accounts describe a three-colour mixing palette. Ten colours have not been announced.
3. Dye up to 100 metres a day in the pilot plantCapacity onlyCORDIS cites capacities "based on the capacities of the equipment purchased"; actual daily output is not reported.
4. Early commercialisationDeliveredFirst customer site at RDD (Valérius Group) in Portugal, with launches for H&M and Pangaia, per Cambridge Enterprise; a £18M Series B in May 2022.
5. Life Cycle Assessment publishedDeliveredListed as a deliverable on the CORDIS results page.

The grant built what it was meant to build. Colorifix's January 2023 announcement, preserved by the Internet Archive, says it also paid for 10 hires, OEKO-TEX Standard 100 tests that the pigments passed, and a patent application for a fermenter design, and quotes the EU agency's final assessment that the project "delivered exceptional results". The gap is the colour range: ten colours to an industrial lightfastness standard was a stated target, and neither the company nor any third party has reported reaching it.

What Colorifix Has Achieved Since the Award

The first products reached shops in 2021. Pangaia's 365 capsule of hoodies and track trousers was dyed pink and blue with bacterial pigments, with black still in development, Green Queen reported in December 2021, and Cambridge Enterprise says the product was launched with H&M and Pangaia at RDD in Portugal. Colorifix's website also quotes the clothing brand Vollebak. In June 2025 it opened Colorifix Studio, a collection of fabrics and colours for designers and brands, at London's Future Fabrics Expo, according to Texspace Today. The Norwich Research Park case study lists mills in Italy, Portugal, Brazil and India as customers, and the 2025 funding announcements say licences were granted for customer onboarding in India and Sri Lanka. None of these mills or licensees is named, and no volumes are public beyond the company's statement that it has gone "from grammes to tonnes of fabric per week".

In 2023 Colorifix was one of 15 finalists for Prince William's Earthshot Prize, in the Build a Waste-Free World category, according to FashionUnited and the law firm Mills & Reeve. It did not win.

The Money

The filed accounts show a company that has grown its team far faster than its sales. Group revenue was £503,278 in 2022, £10,063 in 2023, when production was being set up in Portugal, £785,383 in 2024 and £534,125 in 2025, "primarily from the sale of bioreactors" by the Portuguese subsidiary. Royalties, the licensing income at the heart of the business model, were £344 in 2025. The net loss rose from £5.30 million in 2022 to £10.11 million in 2025, and accumulated losses reached £37.8 million. Group equity was £7.52 million and cash £3.91 million at the end of 2025.

The 2025 accounts carry two warnings. The auditor, SRG (Audit) LLP, qualified its opinion because it could not verify £1,514,901 of stock held by a subsidiary, and it drew attention to a material uncertainty about going concern: the group "requires the continued support of the investors". The directors' report says the next funding round is planned for early 2027, while note 28 of the same accounts refers to "a B3 round in Autumn 2027". Warrants worth £2.8 million were exercised in May 2026, and the Portuguese subsidiary has applied for two grants worth up to €3.258 million, with a decision expected in October 2026.

Colorifix does not appear among the about 315 organisations in the EIC Fund portfolio, which is consistent with a grant only award from the pre-2021 pilot. CORDIS lists no other EU project for the company.

Why Europe Should Care

The EU's Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, adopted on 30 March 2022, sets the goal that by 2030 textiles on the EU market are "free of hazardous substances", and the Commission's March 2024 communication on biotechnology and biomanufacturing names biomanufacturing among the technologies Europe wants to lead. A dyeing process that replaces petrochemical dyes with fermentation fits both. There is also an industrial twist: the EU funded a UK company in 2019, and since Brexit that company has moved its production and then its research into the EU, to Portugal.

The Verdict

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