Octarine Bio, a Danish BioTech company developing a new generation of sustainable pigments through precision fermentation, has successfully secured €5 million to accelerate the industrial-scale validation and commercial rollout of PurePalette, their natural pigment platform.
The round was supported by existing investors and joined by new partners, including The Footprint Firm, Edaphon, Unconventional Ventures, DSM-Firmenich Ventures, Oskare Capital, as well as several business angels, among them Per Falholt and Steen Riisgaard, former CSO and CEO of Novozymes (now Novonesis). This brings its total Series A raise to €12.8 million, including earlier pre-Series A financing.
Commenting on the milestone, Nethaji Gallage, CEO and co-founder of Octarine Bio, says: “The completion of our Series A is a pivotal step for Octarine. It enables us to scale production of our first three flagship PurePalette colours, execute on commercial partnerships already in place, and expand product development of our safe and sustainable pigments into new industries. We deeply appreciate the unwavering support from our existing investors and are excited to welcome new partners who bring additional industry-relevant capabilities.”
Octarine Bio’s Series A extension fits into a broader pattern of 2025/2026 European funding activity in synthetic biology and sustainable materials, as covered by EU-Startups.
In May 2025, Solena Materials, a London-based company developing synthetic-biology-enabled textiles, raised €5.9 million in Seed funding to scale production of next-generation sustainable fabrics. More broadly within industrial and enabling BioTech, Helsinki-based Avenue Biosciences secured €4.8 million in early-stage funding in January 2026 to expand its protein engineering and manufacturing tools, underlining sustained capital deployment into platform technologies that support scalable biological production.
Taken together, these rounds represent approximately €10.7 million in disclosed funding across adjacent sectors, providing context for Octarine Bio’s financing as part of a wider, albeit selective, flow of capital into European synthetic biology and sustainable materials ventures during 2025 and 2026.
Anna Zimmermann, Senior Associate, Edaphon adds: “PurePalette has the potential to drastically reduce the environmental impact of textile dyeing, one of the most polluting steps in the textile value chain. By fitting into existing dyeing processes, the pigments can be widely adopted and drive meaningful change across the industry. We are excited to support the team as they move into this next phase.”
Founded in 2018, Octarine Bio is a synthetic biology company, engineering microbial systems to produce bio-based pigments with a proven low environmental impact. Through proprietary fermentation and biocatalysis platforms, Octarine Bio reportedly creates high-performance alternatives to fossil-based dyes, designed to integrate directly into existing textile manufacturing systems.
According to PurePalette, they are the industry’s only fully bio-based colour platform capable of delivering the entire colour spectrum through a single production process, offering high colour strength, performance, and stability, while maintaining a proven low environmental impact.
PurePalette colours possess unique properties enabling use in applications spanning several business areas, ranging from textile, food and beverage, cosmetics and many more.
Jonas Ahm-Lundgren, Partner, The Footprint Firm said: “We are thrilled to continue backing Octarine in bringing their groundbreaking technology to market.The team is world-class, and the potential for bio-based colour in the textile space and beyond is enormous.”
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/01/copenhagens-octarine-bio-adds-e5-million-to-series-a-to-advance-sustainable-colour-platform/
