Construction and demolition waste accounts for more than a third of all waste generated in the EU, with roughly 450 to 500 million tonnes produced every year. Yet the materials going into most interiors and buildings today still come from freshly quarried stone and newly produced concrete. enkei, a Stockholm-based startup, is working directly on that contradiction. The company takes ceramic and construction waste and converts it into refined, design-quality circular construction materials for architecture and interior applications.
enkei was founded by Lovisa Sunnerholm, previously at Electrolux and Google, and Miriam Bichsel, whose design career began at brands including Hermès and Bottega Veneta. That combination is worth noting. Sunnerholm brings operational scale and systems thinking from two very different corporate environments. Bichsel brings a trained eye for material quality and aesthetic standards from luxury fashion. Together, they spent months on construction sites and in landfills, mapping waste streams before settling on ceramic demolition waste as the most commercially promising raw material.
The Material Behind the Brand:
enkei’s first product out of that research is ReCeramix, a circular material made from over 90% recovered waste. It delivers the look and feel of natural stone and decorative concrete, while reducing cement use by up to 80% compared to conventional decorative concrete, and is manufactured using green electricity. The material is already in active commercial use across interior applications, including tabletops, window sills, and other specified architectural elements. It has also been installed at boutique hotel Ett Hem and members’ club Angel House in Stockholm.
To validate the material in a real market context, enkei applied ReCeramix to its first physical product, the Reminder (001) lamp, designed with ASCA Studio and launched at Nordiska Kompaniet in 2024 during Stockholm Design Week. Products now have distribution through Nordiska Galleriet and NK in Stockholm, and through The Oblist in Paris, the curated design platform backed by Audemars Piguet. The product line has since grown to include multiple lamp formats and tabletop surfaces.
Pre-Seed Round with Strategic Backers:
enkei closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round at a €3 million valuation in March 2026. The investor group is built around deep sector credibility rather than generalist capital.
Danish architect Anders Lendager, whose Lendager Group won the competition to design UN17 Village, the first building project designed to meet all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, joined as both investor and active collaborator on material development. He is joined by Christina Åqvist, co-founder of recycling group Vinning and former CEO of pan-European distributor Distrelec; Ulf Mattsson, who has served as CEO and President of surface materials group Tarkett Inc; and Fabian Månsson, former Sanitec board member and private equity chairman. RadCap, a Swedish investment firm owned by 81 women that supports female-led early-stage startups, also participated. Thomas Granfeldt, a professor specializing in bio-based materials and industrial processing, and Daniel Strömberg, a materials scientist with a patent in ceramic materials, rounded out the round.
The capital is going toward R&D and the commercialization of ReCeramix as enkei scales both its product range and the volume of waste it can process through its production facility in Skåne.
Institutional Recognition and Team Depth:
Beyond private investment, enkei was awarded EU-backed Interreg funding to lead a project developing new circular material flows within the building sector. The company has also received the ELLE Decoration Inspirer of the Year and Plaza Sustainability awards.
The broader team enkei has assembled spans design, engineering, and industrial operations. The engineering lead previously chaired the Chalmers Robotics Society and serves on the board of AI company Lovable. COO Anton Tornberg was previously head of demand and supply management at Ericsson.
The company is actively expanding its sustainable interior design materials platform into larger architectural surface applications and is building partner relationships across manufacturing, retail, and the building sector.
