EVANIUM, a Regensburg-based life-science company developing ingredients based on its IP-protected drug delivery technology OPTISOLV®, has closed a €2.2 million Seed funding round.
The round was supported by FoodLabs and Feast Ventures, with participation from existing angel investors. The company plans to use this funding to scale its proprietary OPTISOLV® technology, expand the team, advance clinical studies, and accelerate commercial partnerships in nutraceuticals, nutricosmetics, and functional foods.
“EVANIUM addresses one of the most expensive inefficiencies in the nutraceutical industry. Improving bioavailability doesn’t just benefit brands, it directly improves consumer outcomes,” said Adrian Friederich, Head of Investments at FoodLabs.
Founded in 2019 by Felix Rolka, David Ofner, and Carlo Werkmann, EVANIUM focuses on improving key properties, including solubility, stability, and bioavailability, of ingredients for use in nutraceuticals, functional foods, nutricosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
Through its proprietary OPTISOLV Technology platform, EVANIUM enables more effective absorption and performance of ingredients, helping partners develop high-performance, clean-label products.
According to the company, despite premium pricing, many nutraceutical supplements deliver only a fraction of their promised benefits because much of the active ingredients is poorly absorbed. In some instances, the human body can effectively utilise less than 1% of the ingredient.
EVANIUM claims to address this fundamental inefficiency with a new generation of bioavailability-enhanced ingredients. Built around a dual‑coating system, OPTISOLV combines an inner cyclodextrin-based core with an outer phospholipid shell, stabilising natural actives in a crystal‑free, highly dispersible state.
It notes that this structure prevents re‑agglomeration, improves permeability, and enables higher solubility and absorption, using only natural materials. For challenging actives such as Curcumin, EVANIUM reports that solubility improves by more than 1,000x and release during digestion by more than 170x, compared with the native form, outperforming conventional phospholipid-based approaches in a side-by-side comparison.
“The future of nutraceuticals lies not in higher dosages, but in smarter formulations. OPTISOLV turns promising bioactives into high‑performance ingredients, enabling truly effective products. With this funding, we are able to accelerate the scale of our impact,” said Felix Rolka, co‑founder and CEO of EVANIUM.
In 2025, the company successfully released OPTISOLV® Curcumin in partnership with Hevert-Arzneimittel, a prominent German herbal medicine manufacturer. This collaboration was EVANIUM’s initial commercial launch in Germany and confirmed OPTISOLV® as a market-ready technology for established B2B partners.
EVANIUM has filed its fourth patent, securing OPTISOLV as the foundation of a scalable ingredient platform. The company’s portfolio now includes four functional ingredients: OPTISOLV Curcumin, Berberine, Boswellia, and Passiflora. Preparations for clinical studies are underway to further strengthen the scientific evidence behind EVANIUM’s formulations.
Following the seed round, the company has grown to more than 12 team members. In 2026 alone, EVANIUM has produced and delivered more than two tons of material.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/04/germanys-evanium-secures-e2-2-million-to-improve-the-solubility-and-bioavailability-of-nutraceutical-ingredients/
