The Colonial real estate company and the construction company Copisa have entered into the shareholding of Poplac, a Barcelona company that uses seaweed as raw material to make prefabricated panels for construction, similar to the usual Pladur, but sustainable.

Poplac, which is the trademark of a company called Industria Circular TNP, is promoted by Juan Molins Monteys, director of the Cementos Molins group, who is the first shareholder of the startup with 25% of the capital. Its shareholders also include the Barcelona developer La Llave de Oro; the Sanaujencs company, owned by Higini Cierco, the Andorran businessman who was the first shareholder of BPA, and Quim Miró, candidate of the Social Democratic Party in Andorra la Vella in the last elections and owner of the advanced printing company Tag Systems.

The shareholders have contributed a total of 2.25 million euros to launch the Poplac project, and with European aid and bank financing they plan to invest a total of 4.5 million euros and build a factory in Alcora (Castellón). “There they have given us all kinds of facilities to establish ourselves and to collect the algae, such as posidonia and sargassum, which remain on the beaches as residue and are our raw material,” explains Juan Molins.

The company is based on a patent from a researcher from the University of Valencia that uses this marine waste to create a material with fire-retardant, water-repellent and insulating properties and received recognition as an innovative product at the Rebuild fair.

“There is great pressure from investment funds and institutions to have more sustainable buildings, and our product is a net CO₂ collector, while the materials with which we compete use petroleum derivatives,” explains Molins. The clients of its panels will be promoters, who will put them directly in the works, or manufacturers of elements for industrialized construction. And they will allow buildings to achieve high sustainability certifications.

Poplac has its Castellón plant almost ready, which will start operating before the end of the year, and has the capacity to produce 1.5 million meters of panels. The company hopes to have it at full production in three years, which would place the company with ten people on staff (now there are three) and a turnover of eight million euros. “If the project goes as expected, we can expand the plant’s capacity or open in other locations,” he acknowledges.

Molins, director of the cement company and fourth generation of the founding family, explains that Cementos Molins is not a shareholder of Poplac “because we do not invest in startups, but in already consolidated companies.”