The packaging sector is using extremely polluting technologies from previous centuries, we cannot achieve EU Green Deal goals unless we scale these radically lower footprint innovations fast. To resolve this, several companies are constantly seeking innovative ways to reduce their ecological footprint. One such company is the Estonian startup RAIKU.
Closes pre-seed funding
Now, RAIKU has picked up over €1.1 million in a pre-seed funding round. Its initial funders include Kaamos, Vestman, Little Green Fund and many private investors from Estonia and Finland. It has received support from a network consisting of industry, investors, government, clients, accelerators, universities and research centres. It also includes public organisations such as Enterprise Estonia, Cleantech Estonia, and many others.
After a year of heavy hardware development and having built the team, technology and gotten their products out, RAIKU is officially on the market and executing its next scale-up steps.
Karl Pärtel, co-founder at RAIKU said, “Packaging sector is using extremely polluting technologies from previous centuries, we cannot achieve EU Green Deal goals unless we scale these radically lower footprint innovations fast. And I’m really glad that top global brands, governmental organisations and private investors see RAIKU as a very potential solution to solve this issue! Packaging is a €1 trillion industry so the opportunity is also massive.”
Revolutionises the packaging industry
Founded by Karl Pärtel and Rain Randsberg in 2021 in Estonia, RAIKU produces beautiful, protective and 100% natural packaging materials. These materials have a super low CO2 footprint to combat the dire situation where 90% of packaging ends up in a landfill or nature.
Using zero chemicals makes its packaging harmless to nature and after use, it can be turned back into nutrients by nature itself. RAIKU’s novel process increases its raw material volume by 15-20 times making it one of the most efficient raw material uses in the world. Compared to paper and cartons, RAIKU needs 90% less wood, 98% less energy, 99.9% less water, and 100% less chemicals. This helps greatly against deforestation, but also to save vast amounts of other resources.
Achievements of RAIKU
RAIKU’s market interest is evident as it has won the prestigious Green Packaging Award at Luxepack Paris. It’s a high-end packaging trade fair where all the top global luxury brands’ packaging managers voted RAIKU as the best sustainable packaging material for luxury brands. Now, the company is facing requests from both packaging and private companies.
The company is in talks with VCs to scale up the production next year. Also, it plans to have modular production units around Europe and beyond in the upcoming years.
