Dispersa, a Laval, Que.-based cleantech company with a development team in Sydney, has posted that it is proceeding with expansion plans after closing a $5.8 million funding round earlier in the year.

Dispersa is developing “biosurfactants” derived from food waste. Surfactants are the active compounds in many everyday cleaning and cosmetics products, such as detergents, creams and hand soaps.

The company has had a development team working in Sydney, first attracted by the fermentation facilities at the Verschuren Centre. Earlier this year, Founder and CEO Nivatha Balendra told Chemical & Engineering News that Dispersa is in the process of moving from its pilot plant to a new facility that can produce 100 tonnes of product per year.

“We have been rapidly scaling, and the transition to commercial scale is officially under way,” Balendra posted on LinkedIn last week. “We are moving into over 100 tonnes of annual production capacity, serving customers in the HI&I [home care, industrial and institutional cleaning] segment.”

In January, Dispersa closed a $5.8 million funding round, led by Nàdarra Ventures, the VC fund set up by Charlottetown-based Natural Products Canada.  The other investors in the round included BDC Thrive Lab, Cycle Momentum, The51 Food & AgTech Fund and Fonds d'investissement Eurêka.

Dispersa had last raised capital in 2023, when it closed a $3 million equity-and-debt round led by Invest Nova Scotia.

Dispersa's technology combines synthetic biology and precision fermentation to create cost-competitive and high-performing surfactants that are totally derived from waste. Using waste oils and sugars, the process reduces costs and boosts surfactant sustainability. Dispersa says its flagship ingredient, PuraSurf M is the world's first fully waste-derived biosurfactant.

"Circularity is central to Nàdarra's thesis – revolutionizing the way we produce and use materials derived from nature," Nàdarra General Partner Mary Dimou said at the time of the funding. "Having invested in their pre-seed round and now again, in the seed round, we're thrilled to continue supporting Nivatha and her team in their mission to create healthier communities and environments."

Dispersa has grown its presence in Nova Scotia and in April was one of the private companies committing money to the new biomanufacturing centre in Dartmouth, the Neptune BioInnovation Centre.