The East Midlands clean tech startup raised the capital from ACF Investors to develop its sawdust-to-biochemicals plant.
"The founding sugar scientist, now retired, was inspired by seeing how waste from sugar cane processing was under-valued and often burned. He wanted to extract environmental and economic benefits from such woody biomass waste. Early active shareholders then evolved the concept into our current focus on the sawdust produced from timber operations, giving us a high volume feedstock available in the UK."
The pre-seed round was led by Angel Invest with participation from industry veterans.
"During my tenure at Mastercard I experienced time and again the challenges presented by the fragmented banking landscape in the UK. When I discovered there was no easy solution available, I set out to create one myself, removing the challenges that UK consumers currently face when requesting payments from friends that bank with a different provider."
The pre-seed round was led by Manchester Angels to support the completion of the Child Labour Index and advance stewardship tools for investors.
"To be able to oversubscribe the funding round in the current economic conditions is a monumental achievement for HACE and a testament to the growing awareness of the scale of the child labour issue and the role that technology will play in sustainably eradicating it."
The pre-series A round was backed by investors including AlbionVC and Ponderosa Ventures to support UK rollout and international expansion.
"We believe that Mondra’s footprinting solution can not only assist companies in meeting their scope 3 emissions reductions targets but can also support product development teams in improving products to meet the demands of end-consumers. In this way, we expect Mondra to help customers drive both impact and commercial outcomes."
