Greentech Ponda secures £2.4m from DEFRA's Farming Innovation Programme and Innovate UK
This article covers Ponda, a greentech startup, securing a £2.4m grant from DEFRA’s Farming Innovation Programme, co-funded by Innovate UK, to lead a 30-month wetland farming demonstration growing bulrush on rewetted peatland. The project aims to prove a supply chain for Ponda’s plant-based insulation BioPuff while restoring peatland, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating new income streams for farmers.
Ponda, a greentech startup, has secured a £2.4 million grant funding round from DEFRA’s Farming Innovation Programme, co-funded by Innovate UK, to lead a 30-month wetland farming demonstration growing bulrush on rewetted peatland. The project aims to prove a supply chain for BioPuff, Ponda’s plant-based insulation for apparel, while restoring peatland, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and creating new income streams for farmers.
Why it matters
Drained peatlands are among the United Kingdom’s largest agricultural sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Rewetting these soils and using paludiculture—the cultivation of wetland crops such as bulrush (Typha latifolia)—keeps soils wet, preserves carbon storage, supports biodiversity recovery and produces commercially valuable biomass.
Ponda’s demonstration will establish a 30-hectare site and aims to show bulrush yields of roughly three tonnes per hectare. The consortium estimates the approach could avoid about 15,000 tonnes of CO2e by 2050 and, according to Finance Earth modelling, begin generating commercial revenues within a year after project completion. If realised at scale, the model could change how lowland peat is managed by aligning conservation outcomes with farm incomes.
Inside the product
BioPuff is a plant-based insulation material designed for apparel and accessories as an alternative to fossil-fuel-derived synthetics and animal down. Ponda says the material can cut embedded carbon by up to 88% compared with goose down. BioPuff has already been used by brands including Berghaus, Stella McCartney, Ahluwalia and Sheep Inc, illustrating early market traction across outdoor and fashion labels that are testing lower-carbon filling materials.
The demonstration is intended to move the work beyond lab and pilot stages into real-world production systems: developing agronomy for bulrush on rewetted peatland, establishing processing routes and testing supply-chain economics for a fibre-to-product pathway.
Who are the investors?
The immediate funding comes as a £2.4 million grant awarded under DEFRA’s Farming Innovation Programme, co-funded by Innovate UK. That grant will underwrite the 30-month demonstration and the consortium’s work to restore peatland and build processing and supply-chain capacity.
Ponda’s earlier private financing is also material to the company’s progress. In November 2025 the company closed a £2 million seed round co-led by Faber and Counteract, with participation from PDS Ventures, Evenlode Impact and the Royal College of Art. Including grants and awards, Ponda says it has now secured £5.5 million in total funding.
The project consortium brings together agricultural and research partners: J&K Barnard Farms will lead land management and on-farm delivery; Liverpool John Moores University contributes research expertise; Lancashire Wildlife Trust provides peatland restoration and biodiversity input; Finance Earth supplied financial modelling on viability; and Berghaus is involved as an early commercial partner demonstrating end use.
Ponda has also opened an investment crowdfunding round on Republic, open to eligible investors, as it looks to broaden its investor base alongside grant and institutional backers.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Julian Ellis-Brown, Co-founder & CEO at Ponda, said:
This funding is a major milestone for Ponda because it moves our work beyond pilot projects towards the real-world production systems the market needs. We're not simply developing a new material - we're building the agricultural, processing and supply chain needed to produce it at scale. BioPuff® is our first proof point, but the bigger opportunity is demonstrating that restored wetlands can support commercially significant material production. This project gives us the opportunity to prove that model in the UK, creating value for farmers, strengthening climate resilience and helping reshape the future of textile materials.
Partners involved framed the project as both an environmental and practical test. In the announcement, Mike Longden, Peatland Programme Technical Lead at Lancashire Wildlife Trust, said:
This is an exciting project with significant economic and environmental benefits. Demonstrating a commercially viable approach to managing lowland peat at scale - one that improves biodiversity while supporting sustainable farming has huge potential to transform how we manage these landscapes for the future.
In the announcement, Will Barnard, Environmental Manager at J&K Barnard Farms, said:
What makes this project important is that it brings together every part of the system - from land management and crop production to processing and end use. Support from the Farming Innovation Programme is helping accelerate work that has the potential to demonstrate that wetland farming can be operationally credible, commercially viable and scalable.
The bigger picture
The grant reflects growing policy and market interest in nature-based solutions that combine climate mitigation with rural economic opportunities. DEFRA’s backing, paired with Innovate UK co-funding and private seed investors, signals public-private appetite for projects that move beyond carbon accounting into operational supply chains.
For the textile sector, establishing reliable, low-carbon feedstocks could ease pressure on upstream material choices and help brands meet net-zero commitments. For farmers and landowners, paludiculture offers an alternative route for managing marginal, rewetted peatland that could diversify income while delivering environmental benefits.
The demonstration will be watched by greentech investors and conservationists alike as an early test of whether wetland farming can scale in the UK and create commercially viable material flows that align with landscape restoration objectives.
They've invested in Ponda
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