LigniLabs was founded in June 2022 in Wiesbaden as a spin-off from basic research by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. LigniLabs aims to develop and offer novel products in the field of targeted drug delivery and biobased drug encapsulation.

The initial product of LigniLabs, which was developed on the basis of its own platform technology and is currently in the approval process, is ESCApe, a novel plant protection product against the grapevine disease ESCA, which was previously considered incurable.
The spin-off was funded from 2021 to early 2023 under the EXIST research transfer program of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection and the European Social Fund for Germany.

The first scientific investigations into the development of lignin microcarriers and their efficacy against the grapevine disease ESCA began in 2015 in the research group of Prof. Dr. Wurm. Together with the Institute for Biotechnology and Drug Research at the University of Mainz (IBWF) and the Dienstleistungszentrum Ländlicher Raum (DLR), the good efficacy of the ESCApe microcarriers was confirmed in extensive laboratory and field trials.