How Dispersa found the right investors to scale its sustainable solution

Founded: 2019
Sector: Cleantech
Program: Women in Cleantech/Capital Program
Services: Capital Connections

The deep investor connections of MaRS advisors helped Dispersa secure its first funding round.

After seeing the devastation of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in 2013, which released 6 million litres of crude oil, Nivatha Balendra was determined to find a cleaner way of cleaning up. She began researching how certain microbes produce what is essentially soap and learned that these natural compounds — called biosurfactants — can be used not only to treat oil spills but also as key ingredients in everyday items like shampoo, cleaning products and cosmetics. Balendra was fascinated by these microbes and, in 2019, she founded Dispersa to commercialize a method of creating these biosurfactants from food waste.

“What excited me the most was being able to translate research into a solution that benefited society,” she says. “My personal experience as a cancer survivor cemented in me the importance of having non-toxic and truly sustainable products. Our mission is to shift toward a circular chemical industry that leverages waste instead of non-sustainable sources.”

The challenge: Over the last five years, Dispersa has secured both non-dilutive and dilutive funding. But to bring her solution to market, Balendra needed more capital. With a tight investor market and a need for patient capital, it was a difficult challenge. It’s particularly hard right now for entrepreneurs in the hard-tech space, says Leah Perry, a senior manager of cleantech at MaRS. Many Canadian investors, she notes, lack the technical expertise needed to properly assess their innovations and tend to favour software solutions that often yield faster returns.

“There is a massive gap right now for Canadian hard-tech ventures at the seed stage. There are very few climate tech investors who will participate in rounds and even fewer who will lead rounds,” says Perry. “And so a lot of startups have to look to the U.S.”

The strategy: As a member of the Women in Cleantech Challenge program, Balendra was able to tap into the MaRS network of cleantech investors. Perry and other MaRS advisors also worked closely with her to help her refine her business strategy and hone her pitch deck and fundraising materials over a nearly two-year fundraising process. “The MaRS Innovation Showcases provided a great platform to share our pitch before we started raising. I practiced the pitch a lot,” says Balendra. “It was invaluable.”

The impact: All that practice paid off. In April 2023, Dispersa raised an oversubscribed round of $3 million in financing ($1.5 million in grants and $1.5 million in venture capital) from Invest Nova Scotia, the Circular Economy Fund, Fondaction, Dragonfly Ventures, Good & Well and BoxOne Ventures. It was one of the first pre-seed funding rounds by a cleantech woman founder in Canada, where all the lead investors were women. “It’s not something I’ve ever seen before,” says Perry. “It’s just an amazing story.”

What’s next: Dispersa has scaled its production of the world’s first waste-derived biosurfactants to the pre-commercial level. “This round was monumental for us,” says Balendra. She’s now working on raising a seed round of $5 million.

“MaRS has played a catalytic role in my entrepreneurial journey, having started Dispersa through the pilot cohort of the Women in Cleantech Challenge,” says Balendra. “We’re not Dispersa without MaRS and we look forward to continuing achieving greater heights with the MaRS team.”

Find out more about how the companies in the RBC Women in Cleantech Accelerator are building a sustainable future.