Singapore circular food systems company secures growth capital and strategic investors to accelerate the commercial scale-up of its proprietary bio-refinery platform.
Singapore, Life Lab Resources Pte. Ltd. (“Life Lab Resources” or “LLR”) has closed a USD one million Pre-Series A investment round to support the commercial scale-up of its bio-refinery and expand its end-to-end circular food system.
The round was led by Decarb123 Pte. Ltd., with the lead investor group investing through DC123FW Pte. Ltd. Strategic participation came from Keng Eng Kee Holding Pte. Ltd., alongside follow-on investment from seed investor AC S323 Pte Ltd, which is an angel syndicate, led by Ms Huang Shao-Ning.
As part of the round, Life Lab Resources will strengthen its Board with the appointments of Tiong Heng Liong, representing DC123FW Pte. Ltd. (the investment vehicle through which the Decarb123-led investor group participated in the round), and Paul Liew, Managing Director and a third-generation member of the family behind Keng Eng Kee Seafood. Their appointments bring additional experience across sustainability, finance, foodservice and commercial development.
Scaling an end-to-end Circular food system
Life Lab Resources works across large properties and institutional sites with significant food operations, including hotels, airports, university campuses and shopping malls, as well as commercial caterers.
Under its hub-and-spoke model, WasteMaster systems deployed at customer sites treat and stabilise leftover food, while LLR’s proprietary bio-refinery processes suitable substrates through fermentation into nutrient-rich aquaculture feed. The feed is supplied to farms, with circular farm produce subsequently returned to the food system.
The new capital will primarily fund the commercial-scale expansion of LLR’s Singapore biorefinery, including production infrastructure, process optimisation and further commercialisation of its fermentation technologies.
“This investment allows us to move from successful early commercial deployment into the next phase of scale, Our bio-refinery allows us to take treated food substrates that would otherwise have limited value and, through fermentation and further formulation, transform them into nutrient-rich aquaculture feed. This round gives us the capital and strategic partnerships to scale that process commercially and close the loop from leftover food back to food.”
said Edward Chia, Founder and Managing Director of Life Lab Resources.
LLR’s bio-refinery is designed to address one of the key challenges in food-resource valorisation: the variability of mixed food streams. Its integrated platform combines substrate preparation, foodsafety controls and microbial fermentation to convert heterogeneous food resources into more consistent, higher-value outputs.
LLR is the first and currently the only company in Singapore licensed by the Singapore Food Agency to upcycle mixed food waste into animal feed. It has also attained ISO 22000 certification, an internationally recognised food-safety management system standard.
Strategic capital for commercial scale-up
“We believe Life Lab Resources has the potential to demonstrate that circular economy solutions can combine environmental impact with commercial scalability, Its ability to connect food-resource recovery, bio-refining, aquaculture feed and downstream food off-take creates a differentiated business model. We look forward to supporting the Company as it scales commercially and progressively expands regionally.”
said Tiong Heng Liong, representing DC123FW Pte. Ltd.
“From a foodservice perspective, there is clear value in creating a more circular supply chain where resources that would otherwise be discarded can ultimately be transformed back into food, I look forward to supporting Life Lab Resources as it develops the downstream market for circular farm produce and builds stronger connections between sustainability and commercial demand.”
said Paul Liew, Managing Director of Keng Eng Kee Seafood.
Building demand alongside Pproduction capacity
Life Lab Resources’ customer base spans major hotels, shopping malls, airports and education campuses, with further opportunities being developed across hospitality, healthcare, education and other institutional sectors.
Over the past two years, LLR has also supplied its microbial aquaculture feed to a local aquaponics farm, with the resulting circular farm produce supplied to hospitality clients. This has provided early commercial validation of its closed-loop model converting leftover food into feed and ultimately back into food.
LLR intends to scale its bio-refinery progressively in line with feedstock availability and demand for microbial feed and circular farm produce. Chia said,
“Our strategy is to build the market and production capacity together, so that each stage of scale-up is supported by genuine demand,”
Following its Singapore commercial scale-up, LLR plans to expand regionally in phases, beginning with aquaculture farm partnerships and offtake arrangements before deploying additional WasteMaster systems and establishing local bio-refinery infrastructure where sufficient demand and feedstock have been secured.
