WHEB invests in recycled-plastics business

WHEB Ventures has invested €10.8m (£9.1m) into Germany’s Friedola Tech, a recycled-plastics processing and products business.

Friedola’s products consist of up to 80 per cent recycled materials, whose feedstock is generated by the company’s plastic-waste recycling facilities in Germany. Its products are mainly used in the automotive and logistics industries, and the company already works with some of Germany’s leading vehicle manufacturers.

Friedola’s main product − CON-Pearl − is a lightweight board made of polypropylene. The boards are laminated in a proprietary way that ensures that they are highly rigid, impact and scratch resistant, non-corroding, rot free, chemically resistant, thermally and acoustically insulating, and extremely lightweight. The boards are made mostly from high-quality recycled plastic and are claimed to be 100-per-cent recyclable.

The CON-Pearl boards are used as automotive components, including floorboards in light commercial vehicles. The boards are said to be a lighter, cheaper and more durable alternative to the commonly used wooden floorboards.

Jörg Sperling, partner at WHEB Ventures, said: ‘Friedola is a company with a long history of profitable success and innovation.

‘Its products address some important needs of the automotive and logistics markets, in which fuel efficiency and the use of recycled materials have become key sources of competitive differentiation.’