Our Story

FlexSea was born from an idea by founder and CEO, Carlo Fedeli, in April 2020 and has since blossomed into a bioplastics and biotechnology company. The company is working towards the dual goals of redefining bioplastics with our home compostable, seaweed-based formulations twinned with valorising 100% of the seaweed biomass through our innovative, patent-pending biotechnology vertical.

In FlexSea’s first four years, we have moved from a London flat kitchen to 1 ton per shift production capacity in our Wolverhampton facility. We are proud to show that we have raised £4 million through a combination of private investment and grant funding so far.

Our Approach

We do not want to demonise plastic. Plastic is a fantastic material used in diverse applications that require its very unique specifications. Plastic helps us save lives in hospitals and deliver goods all over the world, we use it to store our food and get to work. Plastic is ingrained in modern life. But how plastic is currently made is deeply unsustainable.

Oil-based plastics rely on the continued extraction of finite resources with widely documented negative Oil-based plastics rely on the continued extraction of finite resources with widely documented negative effects on the climate caused by global warming. The majority of plastic and packaging is single-use, designed to be used once and then discarded, often ending up in the oceans and water systems of the world. This generates a series of questions: Why would a product, which only serves its purpose in one specific moment, need to last forever? Why should the packaging of a product last hundreds if not thousands of years more than the product itself? After all, plastic is made of oil and, with oil such a scarce resource, why waste it in such a futile way? Plastic’s greatest strength is therefore also its greatest weakness: its durability. also its greatest weakness: its durability.

Meanwhile, land crop-derived bioplastics present multiple further hurdles. Firstly, by being cultivated on land, these crops are in direct competition with conventional farming for food production. Even those derived from the by-products and waste streams of human food crops are removing resources used in animal feeds. Land crops require high levels of ecologically harmful, energy intensive fertilisers and pesticides. They also place huge demands on freshwater supplies, depleting rivers and aquifers across the world with knock-on ecological, environmental, social and political consequences. Finally, industrially degradable bioplastics are reliant on significant investment into dedicated collection and processing infrastructure – economically expensive to build and maintain and environmentally costly to operate – which is yet to be delivered on a global scale.

FlexSea are addressing these problems with truly home compostable biomaterials produced from a non-competing feedstock, seaweed. We utilise red seaweeds, which are sustainably and reliably cultivated year round, at scale, to deliver the next generation of sustainable packaging solutions.

Our Biotechnology vertical has been developed to consolidate our circular approach, producing valuable materials derived from 100% of the seaweed we receive. Discover more about our Bioplastics and Biopolymers.

Our Team

At FlexSea we have put together an ambitious team from a diverse range of backgrounds, combining innovative researchers, experienced engineers and passionate business strategists. The product is a well-balanced, interdisciplinary team united by the desire to make a difference on a global scale.