Dot Ingredients is pleased to announce it has been awarded a NZ$133k New to R&D Grant from Callaghan Innovation, Aotearoa New Zealand’s national innovation agency.

The grant supports Dot’s growing research and development programme, helping the company scale its sustainable ingredients platform and accelerate commercial partnerships, particularly in cosmetics and personal care.

“This grant is another big boost to our R&D programme,” said Associate Professor Jack Chen, Dot’s Chief Technology Officer. “With it, we can start to collect some of the key information we need to de-risk the challenge of scaling our production.”

Two new team members are joining the Dot team to support this R&D work, bringing additional technical and management capability to the company.

The new team members will also support the work being done by Dot’s Head of Product, Dr Victor Yim.

“We’re now able to move faster on gathering more and further evidence of how Celluspheres work in real applications. We’re particularly interested in cosmetics and personal care, where there’s strong interest in bio-based, high-performance alternatives” said Dr Yim.

The grant comes as Dot prepares for a Seed round later this year, building on momentum from its pre-Seed raise in 2025, led by Motion Capital with Climate Venture Capital Fund and AUT Innovation Fund.

“As part of the grant, we’re also strengthening our team’s capabilities, as we prepare for the even more complex programme of work we’ll undertake after our next capital raise,” said Michael Fielding, Dot’s CEO.

Dot’s grant funded programme will be delivered with help from specialist R&D systems consultancy IMS Projects, IP advisors and attorneys Blue Penguin IP, and the Process Engineering group at Callaghan Innovation.