Demeta Since the EIC Accelerator: Liquidated, Resin Sold to Vipo

Demeta, a green chemistry company on the Rennes Biopôle, made a resin from dicyclopentadiene (DCPD), a by-product of oil refining, using catalysts it had patented. The European Commission picked it in the 9 October 2019 cut-off of the EIC Accelerator pilot, with blended finance, for a project called i-CARE; the list names Demeta as the project's only company. CORDIS records a grant of €2,436,262.50 towards a total cost of €3,480,375, from 1 April 2020 to 30 September 2022, to qualify its NexTene™ resins for offshore energy equipment and reach "TRL9 before 2022", according to the CORDIS fact sheet. In May 2021 the company announced a €2.4 million equity agreement with the EIC Fund, according to its press release.

On 28 September 2022, two days before the project ended, the commercial court in Rennes opened receivership proceedings and fixed 12 September 2022 as the date Demeta stopped paying its debts, according to the official gazette BODACC. In January 2023 the court sold the NexTene business to the Norwegian rubber and polymer maker Vipo AS, then converted the case into liquidation. On 22 September 2025 the liquidation was closed for insufficient assets, and the company was struck off, according to BODACC and the French business register at annuaire-entreprises.

What Is Left of Demeta

The company no longer exists. The register shows all four of its sites closed and the company "cessée" since 24 September 2025, two days after the liquidation was closed. Its last chief executive on file is Patrick Piot, in post since March 2017, per annuaire-entreprises; the strike-off was published in BODACC on 28 September 2025. Its former web address, demeta-solutions.com, served an online casino site when it was checked in October 2026.

The NexTene technology passed to Vipo. The court in Rennes approved on 31 January 2023 the "partial sale of the NexTene business" of Demeta to Vipo AS of Krokstadelva, Norway, with effect from 1 February 2023, and allowed a French subsidiary to take it over, according to BODACC. Vipo said it had taken over Demeta's catalysts, patents and technologies, including the NexTene family of DCPD materials, and that the Demeta brand would be dropped, according to World Pipelines. "This opens new great opportunities for unique materials in new and existing markets," Vipo's managing director Thor Hegg Eriksen said there.

The buyer's French unit did not last. Vipo France SAS was registered at Demeta's old Rennes address with Thor Hegg Eriksen as president, moved to Saint-Grégoire in 2024, transferred all its assets to Vipo AS in late 2025 and was struck off, according to BODACC notices from March 2023, December 2025 and February 2026. Vipo's website lists insulation, fire protection, piping and rubber products; it names neither NexTene nor DCPD, and its press page does not carry the Demeta acquisition. Whether Vipo still makes or sells NexTene could not be verified.

The Technology: A Tough Resin From a Refinery By-product

Polydicyclopentadiene (pDCPD) is a thermoset plastic made by opening the rings of DCPD molecules with a metal catalyst. It is known for being light and impact resistant. Demeta's pitch was its own patented catalysts, which it described as "molecular tools used at very low dosage", and NexTene formulations that it said matched or beat epoxy, polyurethane and polyester resins in extreme conditions with a 47% lower carbon footprint, according to CORDIS and the company's July 2021 release. The carbon figure is the company's own; no independent life-cycle study was found.

The resin was tested against real needs. Since 2018 Demeta had run a multi-year programme on deep offshore pipeline coatings and insulation under CITEPH, an industry funding scheme, with TotalEnergies, Saipem, Subsea 7, Vallourec and TechnipFMC as sponsors; the 2021 phase focused on long-term ageing, and an industrial validation phase was planned for 2022 "subject to the success of the 2021 stage", the company said. In June 2021 Vipo announced a project with Demeta, funded by the Research Council of Norway, to develop subsea thermal insulation materials using Demeta's DCPD technology, according to Vipo. That partner later became the buyer.

What i-CARE Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The objective was to take NexTene applications to technology readiness level 8 with the grant and, "thanks to the EC investors", start market deployment and reach level 9 before 2022, with production outsourced in Europe. The project's final periodic report, covering April 2021 to September 2022, lists a commercial launch of a grade for glass fibre composites in summer 2021, one grade ready for oil and gas insulation covers and two more in development, catalyst production validated at pre-commercial scale, the first industrial-scale production of NexTene, the first sales in an automotive application, ISO 45001 and ISO 9001 certification, and a technical centre "ready to start". It does not mention the receivership opened two days before the reporting period ended.

Independent sources confirm parts of this. The NexTene PCX resin for glass fibre composites was launched in October 2021, according to the company's announcement, and was shown at the CAMX trade show in 2022, according to CompositesWorld. With the German supplier H+S Automotive, Demeta developed an odourless pDCPD for car interiors; a sunroof frame made with it weighed about 900 g against 1.8 kg in steel, and prototypes went into road tests on 200 vehicles, Demeta's commercial director Ralph Hedel told Techniques de l'Ingénieur in May 2022. CompositesWorld calls the H+S partnership a joint venture; the interview describes a two-year development collaboration. No series production contract, oil and gas customer or wind energy customer was found.

1. NexTene grade for compositesDeliveredNexTene PCX launched October 2021, shown at CAMX 2022.
2. Oil and gas qualificationPartialOne grade ready for insulation covers per CORDIS; no oil and gas customer announced.
3. European supply chainPartialFirst industrial-scale batch and catalyst partner, per the company's own report.
4. Market deployment, TRL9 before 2022Not achieved€353,102 revenue in 2021; receivership in September 2022.
5. Prototyping centre and sales teamNot achievedCentre only "ready to start" at project end; company then liquidated.

The Money

Demeta never earned much from sales. Its revenue rose from €41,850 in 2017 to €353,102 in 2021, while it lost between €682,737 and €3.1 million a year, according to ratios computed from its filed accounts and published by the French government at data.economie.gouv.fr; the 2021 revenue and loss also appear in the business register. In 2020, the first year of i-CARE, the net loss was €1,622,345. The same dataset shows the debt ratio rising from 45.7% in 2018 to 217.7% in 2021 and financial autonomy falling to 27.3%. No accounts for 2022 were filed before the receivership.

The share capital tells a similar story. Stratoz, the company's original name, was registered in Paris in April 2011 with €300,000 of capital, and raised it in steps to €8,575,464 by October 2018. In February 2019 the capital was cut to €2,594,839.20, then raised to €2,900,839.20 in January 2020, where it stayed until the company was struck off, according to the company's notices in BODACC. A cut of this kind usually absorbs past losses, but the filing does not give the reason.

Why It Mattered to Europe

Demeta's goals fitted two EU policies: the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, which backs safer and greener chemical processes, and the EU offshore renewable energy strategy, which needs durable materials for wind and marine equipment. A European catalyst maker for high-performance resins would also have meant less reliance on suppliers outside the EU. The outcome cuts against that: the French company was liquidated and its technology went to Norway, a country outside the EU.

The EIC Accelerator's model of a grant plus equity did not keep Demeta going after the grant ended. The grant paid for development that produced real products and test results. Sales stayed small, and the energy markets the project targeted did not turn into public customer contracts before the money ran out.

The Verdict

Demeta's former managers, Vipo and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout.