RootCamp connects corporations with high-potential startups to solve clearly defined business challenges. Instead of taking equity, the company applies a venture clienting approach that enables established enterprises to adopt external innovation in a fast and structured way. By initiating and managing hands-on pilot projects, RootCamp supports corporates in accelerating their innovation efforts while opening tangible market opportunities for startups.
In this context, RootCamp initiated a collaboration between its partner K+S - Europe’s leading potash supplier for fertilizer production and BIOWEG, a startup from RootCamp Batch #2. Over the course of a six-month pilot in 2024, the two companies assessed the performance of a bio-based fertilizer coating developed to load, bind, and gradually release micronutrients.
K+S markets its Korn-KALI® fertilizer either as a standard product or with added micronutrients mixed in during production. But this method made it hard to create new versions of the product. It limited how many different micronutrient combinations they can offer, made it difficult to scale up production, and slowed down innovation.
BIOWEG developed a natural coating that lets K+S add micronutrients to Korn-KALI® granules after they are already made. This means K+S can offer many new combinations without changing the way the fertilizer is produced. The coating is environmentally friendly and free from microplastics, letting K+S expand its product range in a sustainable and flexible way.
The project was structured across three progressive stages. It began at trial scale (20 kg), where BIOWEG’s biobased fertilizer coating was initially applied and systematically evaluated under controlled conditions. Following this successful assessment, the collaboration moved to pilot scale (1,000 kg), focusing on application at increased volume and validating the coating’s performance under scaled production conditions. Building on these results, the final phase addressed commercial-scale implementation, with the objective of defining and optimizing the key parameters required for industrial application of the biobased coating.
BIOWEG was founded in 2019 and successfully completed the RootCamp accelerator program in 2022. Shortly after finishing the program, the startup announced a strategic cooperation with Ginkgo Bioworks, the US-based biotech company known in part for its prominent investor Bill Gates.
Following the successful completion of the pilot project with K+S in 2024, BIOWEG secured €16 million in Series A funding, bringing the company’s total funding to €22 million. This financing round enables BIOWEG to transition from pilot to industrial-scale production, including the construction of an industrial bacterial cellulose facility in Germany. The plant is designed to meet the growing demand from industrial customers for sustainable, microplastic-free ingredients.
RootCamp’s venture clienting model enables corporations to rapidly test, validate, and implement startup technologies without taking equity stakes. If you are looking to solve concrete business challenges through structured pilot projects with high-potential startups, explore RootCamp’s Venture Clienting services.