Biomaterials startup Ponda has taken its plant-based insulation from wetland to runway. The company’s flagship material, BioPuff®, featured in fashion designer Genaro Rivas’ menswear collection at the UK premiere of his show State of Impact, held at London’s Spitalfields Market on 29 July.
BioPuff® is a plant-based insulation made from bulrush grown in restored wetlands, offering an alternative to oil-derived and animal-based fillers. The material appeared in four looks from Rivas’ SS27 collection, which had already shown at Berlin Fashion Week and moves on to Copenhagen Fashion Week, with London marking its UK debut.
The runway moment caps a string of milestones for the company. Ponda has secured a £2.4 million grant from DEFRA’s Farming Innovation Programme, co-funded by Innovate UK, to lead what is expected to be one of the world’s largest demonstrations of bulrush paludiculture — cultivating bulrushes on rewetted peatland. The consortium includes J&K Barnard Farms, Liverpool John Moores University, Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Finance Earth and outdoor brand Berghaus, aiming to build a commercially viable UK supply chain for sustainable biomaterials. Ponda was also named Innovator of the Year at the inaugural Pride in Our Planet Awards, chosen from over 300 entries by a panel chaired by UK Climate Minister Katie White.
Founded by graduates of Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art’s Innovation Design Engineering programme, Ponda closed a $2.4 million seed round in 2025 to commercialise BioPuff® and is currently part of EarthScale, a scale-up programme for climate tech ventures.
Ponda’s model offers a template worth watching; wetland-grown natural fibres validated on a European runway before scaling into supply chains. For India’s own biomaterial innovators working with lotus, banana and other regenerative fibres, BioPuff®’s trajectory signals a viable path from research to retail relevance.
