Stockholm startup Enkei has raised a pre-seed round at a €3 million valuation to push ReCeramix™, a surface material made from more than 90% recovered ceramic and construction waste, into wider commercial use. The raise amount was not disclosed, but the investor list reads like a deliberate attempt to prove the category can satisfy both designers and industrial buyers.
That matters because construction waste is not some niche side effect. It is one of Europe’s biggest disposal problems, and the sector still leans heavily on virgin materials for the kinds of finishes architects specify every day. Enkei is betting that a material built from demolition waste can compete on aesthetics as well as sustainability, which is usually where these stories either get real or get quietly filed away.
Who is backing Enkei
The round brings in Anders Lendager, the Danish architect behind Lendager Group, which won the competition to design UN17 Village, billed as the first building project in the world designed to meet all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. He is joining as both investor and active collaborator on material development, which is the kind of signal startups like to receive from someone whose day job is built around the built environment.
Other backers include RadCap, the Swedish investment company owned by 81 women, Christina Åqvist of recycling group Vinning, former Distrelec CEO Ulf Mattsson, former CEO and President of Tarkett Inc. Fabian Månsson, and two specialist materials investors: Thomas Granfeldt and Daniel Strömberg. That mix suggests Enkei wanted more than capital; it wanted people who understand procurement, surfaces, recycling, and the long wait between a good prototype and a line item in a spec sheet.
ReCeramix moves from objects to interiors
ReCeramix™ started with lighting products, a sensible way to test the material and manufacturing process before asking architects to trust it with bigger jobs. Those early products were distributed through Nordiska Galleriet and NK in Stockholm, and through The Oblist in Paris, backed by Audemars Piguet. Enkei has since expanded into tabletops, window sills, and specified interior elements.
The company says the material can reduce cement use by up to 80% compared with conventional decorative concrete and is made using green electricity. It is positioned as an alternative to concrete, marble, and terrazzo for interior surfaces, and that is a crowded and expensive bracket to enter. The upside is obvious: if you can make waste look premium, the market gets a lot less sentimental about quarrying new stone.
- Made from over 90% recovered ceramic and construction waste
- Can cut cement use by up to 80% versus decorative concrete
- Already used at Ett Hem, Angel House, and Fotografiska
A design brand with industrial ambitions
Enkei was founded by Lovisa Sunnerholm, who previously worked at Electrolux and Google, and Miriam Bichsel, whose design career began at Hermès and Bottega Veneta. That combination is not accidental; luxury branding and industrial materials usually live in separate universes, and the company is trying to drag them into the same room.
The team also includes an engineering lead with a background in robotics and AI, plus Anton Tornberg as COO, previously head of demand and supply management at Ericsson. Those hires point to a business that knows the hard part is not making a beautiful sample. It is making enough of them, consistently, for projects that do not care about founder mythology.
Enkei customers already using ReCeramix
Enkei says ReCeramix™ is already in use at Ett Hem, the Stockholm boutique hotel; members’ club Angel House; and Fotografiska. The company has also picked up ELLE Decoration ”Inspirer of the Year” and Plaza Sustainability awards, plus EU-backed Interreg funding for a project on new circular material flows in the building sector.
That gives Enkei a better launch position than most materials startups, which often spend years chasing validation before a single commercial install. The next test is whether the company can move from admired objects and select interiors into broader architectural specification, where cost, supply, and fire-tested practicality tend to end the romance pretty fast.