Kebony Raises $34M To Make Sustainable Softwood Behave Like Hardwood, Using Food Waste
10/28/21, 6:00 AM
Money raised
$34 million
It’s fairly simply: Softwood grows a lot faster – in ‘sustainable’ forests – than hardwood. The latter is often found in bio-diverse old-growth forests like, um, the Amazon. So if you could make softwood behave like hardwood, you’d not only access more sustainable wood for construction, you’d also protect hardwood forests from destruction. Plus, you save a lof of GHG emissions.
Company Info
Additional Info
The company says this can give the wood a long-lasting character which actually mirrors the behavior and characteristics of tropical hardwoods. Kebony starts with sustainably harvested wood, then modifies that wood with waste coming from the food production process associated with sugarcane and corncobs. Of course, as the construction industry increasingly looks for greener construction materials, using this type of material makes a lot of sense, not to mention the fact that it might well reduce tropical deforestation. Kebony claims this treatment transforms wood like pine into a wood with features that are “comparable, and in some cases superior, to those of precious tropical hardwoods.” Kebony says it reported revenue growth of 23% in the first half of 2021, compared to the same period in 2020, with a strong positive EBITDA. With over 20 years of R&D in woodtech and a well-proven process that gives cultivated soft woods the desirable properties of hard tropical ones, Kebony is one of them.” Kevin Bone, Partner at Lightrock added: “Kebony is perfectly positioned in the race for a decarbonized world with an ambition to be the leader within wood modification technologies.”