GreenMixes, a sustainability venture led by Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) postdoctoral researcher Dushanth Seevaratnam and PhD student Callon Peate, has won the social venture track at this year’s Postdoc Venture Creation Challenge (PVCC), securing a £20,000 investment prize from Cambridge Enterprise Ventures.

GreenMixes has developed a drop-in cement admixture that offers the cheapest, most scalable route to fully decarbonising concrete and turning buildings into long-term carbon sinks. The biomass-waste-derived additive is designed to sequester atmospheric carbon, supporting industries to reduce environmental harm. The team describes its mission as “building a carbon-negative future”, reflecting its focus on circular-economy innovation and low-impact manufacturing.

"We're over the moon about the PVCC win!” says Callon. “It gives us the momentum to validate our technology at scale and move decisively towards commercialising carbon-negative concrete."

The award was announced at the PVCC Grand Finale, where finalists pitched to an audience of more than 100 guests from across Cambridge’s innovation community. Delivered by IE Cambridge: Innovation & Entrepreneurship, the PVCC is the University’s flagship venture-creation programme for postdoctoral researchers and has already seen its alumni raise more than £172 million in investment since its launch.

Christine Martin, Head of Ventures at Cambridge Enterprise, said, “The finalists did an amazing job of pitching and made our job as judges very hard. They were all so good! They really represent what the University of Cambridge excels at: cutting-edge, transformative research with the potential to improve lives.”

This year’s competition also recognised outstanding ventures across the deep tech and life science categories. Ötzi, the first physics-informed AI for predicting climate catastrophes, won first prize in the business track, with second place being awarded to Cambridge Dielectrix for their next-generation semiconductor technology. The audience prize went to SomNyx for their work on next-generation diagnostic tools for sleep conditions.

The IfM success highlights the growing contribution of manufacturing research to climate-positive solutions.

Find out more about GreenMixes.