Amaranth Protein

Amaranth PF1 is a powdered extract from Amaranth grain that delivers 3 beauty outcomes: skin whitening, hair strengthening, and skin cell protection. BPN have developed a process to produce an extract that meets the criteria for natural personal care products. Their natural extraction process avoids harsh chemicals or solvents and so enables the extract's use in the lucrative, global, natural personal-care market. This addresses growing global concern about the inclusion of chemicals in products applied to the skin.

The efficacy of the extract has been scientifically proven, unlike much of its competition, through in vitro and ex vivo studies by AgResearch for BPN. This enables it to be targeted at the USD 10 billion skin whitening market in Asia-Pacific.

It's great to help an organisation that doesn't normally have access to PreSeed investment. BPN are working on a range of exciting opportunities.

They prepared a solid business plan for the Amaranth Protein project with support from KiwiNet's commericalisation managers and the Investment Committee were keen to support them.

"Working together with the KiwiNet team on our proposal to the Investment Committee allowed the development of a well thought out and comprehensive business case. The positive and professional feedback from the committee is hugely valuable and would be difficult to access in another forum. Not only does this contribute to our internal business planning around the technology but the resulting well-rounded proposal increases the chance to access funding. All of the KiwiNet staff are professional and good to deal with. Receiving funding to take our technology to the next stage is a great outcome for BPN."

Sarah Heine, CEO, Biopolymer Network