Scott Kennedy, co-founder of Revive Eco, shares how his Scottish startup transforms coffee waste into sustainable ingredients, the challenges of scaling, and the role of Celtic collaboration in driving growth.
Revive Eco is transforming waste into opportunity, proving that sustainability and innovation can go hand in hand. Co-founder Scott Kennedy, inspired by the sheer volume of coffee waste he saw firsthand, has built a company that extracts valuable oils from spent coffee grounds—offering an eco-friendly alternative to palm and coconut oil.
Based in Scotland, Revive Eco has navigated the challenges of scaling a green chemistry startup outside traditional tech hubs, leveraging global partnerships and Celtic business ties to expand internationally. Having participated in a past Interceltic Business Forum, Kennedy has seen firsthand the power of cross-border collaboration in driving business growth.
As Revive Eco gears up for its next phase, he shares insights on funding, scaling operations, and the role of community in accelerating innovation.
Revive Eco is a green chemistry company, developing innovative processes to create value from ‘waste’ materials. Our first focus was on spent coffee grounds, and we have developed a patented process to extract the oil from this material, which predominantly ends up in landfill. The oil and derivatives we create can help replace virgin ingredients such as palm and coconut oil, which can have a hugely detrimental impact on our environment through deforestation and habitat destruction.
Our core focus at the moment is supplying our outputs as ingredients into the skincare market, with plans to enter other markets e.g. food and drink in the future. We are based in Scotland and have global ambitions to work with partners and apply our processes to a variety of materials in order to maximize the positive impact we can have on our world.
Revive initially started as a class project as part of our studies in the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at Strathclyde University in Glasgow. At that point, we worked in cafes and restaurants and saw first hand the ridiculous amount of spent coffee grounds being thrown in the bin at the end of each shift. We thought that there surely must be something more useful that can be done with this abundance of material than throwing it away, and that kicked off a load of research and various development projects over the course of several years to get to where we are now.
With this being the initial lightbulb moment, we have of course needed to draw on inspiration over the years to stay motivated and tackle the many challenges in front of us. This inspiration has come from living in Scotland and being surrounded by some of the most incredible environments and nature in the world. It’s fair to say that this has created a sense of responsibility and desire to protect the environment on our doorstep, and on a global scale. We want to use Revive as a vehicle to drive change here and further afield.
We’ve found accessing resources and funding to be a key challenge. Data and insights would suggest that being based in London and parts of the US would make accessing funding slightly easier and faster. We’re operating in an interesting space, combining the circular economy, green chemistry, biotech and manufacturing, which is a slightly new field for many investors. As such, this has undoubtedly made accessing investment more challenging, and definitely slower. I know a couple of tech companies that moved to the US early in their journey and saw success raising capital there. However, the nature of our model has seen us focus on building a process in the UK before then looking to expand internationally with partners through licensing.
Whilst there have definitely been downsides in regard to raising finance compared to being based in London or San Francisco, there are huge upsides. We have fantastic universities and colleges on our doorstep, enabling us to build an incredibly strong team, who have been invaluable to our growth. We are also lucky to have some fantastic support organizations who have provided grant funding to us, which has helped leverage additional investment and move the business forward whilst protecting our equity position.
For us, we wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for the partnerships and relationships we have built to help move Revive forward. Being culturally like-minded, I believe, is a true asset to help move exciting projects forward with greater speed. Being engaged within the Interceltic Business Forum has been brilliant to help foster this sense of community and collective strength to drive change through collaboration.
Scotland is of course a very small country in global terms, but the Interceltic community can help to strengthen this position on a world level and open door sand opportunities which would not be possible without the support of the forum. Scotland has also ended up on the receiving end of Brexit repercussions, so for us, it is brilliant to have the opportunity to engage with companies and individuals in other parts of the UK and Europe to build relationships which can add value to all.
We are in the very final stages of completing our pilot scale up project with a partner in France. This has seen our process scaling up 150x and giving us a substantial quantity of oil to take to market for the first time. This project was borne out of an EIT programme we were on, which also opened the door to opportunities across Europe that we are continuing to develop.
We are fortunate to have the support of Scottish Development International in Scotland, and they have helped facilitate introductions and engagement with companies in key areas of interest for us. This has seen us engaging with companies across the globe, including Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, the US and Australia. Whilst Scotland is our home, we know we have huge opportunities to replicate our process with global partners to drive change across a plethora of industries and geographies.
We’ll be launching our first consumer products containing our ingredients over the next few months which we’re incredibly excited about. We’ll also be embarking on the next step in our scale-up journey post-pilot which will see us move towards larger scale manufacturing to increase the output we are taking to the skincare market.
Furthermore, we’ve got some incredibly exciting R&D projects in the pipeline, too. This involves looking at further ingredients we can derive from coffee grounds, but also looking to apply our process to new ‘waste’ streams, as coffee has always just been the first step for us. We’ll be raising further investment this year to facilitate our growth, as well as adding to our team in order to make 2025 our biggest year yet.
Scott Kennedy’s journey with Revive Eco highlights the power of innovation, sustainability, and international collaboration—key themes at the upcoming Interceltic Business Forum in Falmouth, Cornwall, on April 25, 2025. This event will bring together entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders from across the Celtic nations to forge new connections and explore opportunities for growth.
Don’t miss the chance to be part of the conversation. Register now and join us in Cornwall!
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