Syntetica raises round to scale its next generation recycling solution
By Thomas Poitrineau, Director, EQT Ventures and Sandra Malmberg, Partner, EQT Ventures
The fashion industry, valued at a colossal $1.7 trillion, is currently facing surging pressure from consumers, environmental groups and regulatory bodies, to go green. This is pushing them to radically rethink their supply chains with net zero targets in mind, and closing the loop in the linear lifecycle of textiles used to produce their garments is a key priority.
Amid this background, we are delighted to welcome Syntetica to the portfolio, an innovative textile recycling company that’s developed a first of its kind technology dedicated to transforming the future of nylon recycling. Accounting for 7% of new textiles manufactured each year, nylon makes up a significant proportion of garments manufactured today. Syntetica’s founders have developed a cutting-edge chemical process that depolymerises nylon blended fabrics — separating out and purifying nylon from elastane, cotton, and other fibres so they can be repurposed in the supply chain and crucially, avoid ending up in landfills.
While there are other nylon recycling processes out there, we’ve yet to see any of them rolled out at scale — they typically require high temperatures and pressures and are expensive to implement. Our fresh capital is seeking to change that, financing the team’s plans to build a pilot lab to produce its first prototype, before scaling its solution across Europe.
We first met founders Marco and Louis through the Entrepreneur First programme in Paris — it quickly became clear that we had a shared passion for finding novel ways of solving climate issues and we were impressed by their technical expertise and challenger mentality. Marco has significant commercial experience in the sustainable fashion sector in Head of Growth roles, and Louis has achieved extraordinary success in academia, holding a PhD in Chemistry and two post-doctorates in Catalyst Design and Molecular Catalysis.
Together they are true visionaries, seeking to change the fashion business from the ground up. They’re only nine months into their journey, which makes their progress so far even more impressive — they’ve already inked partnerships with household names like Victoria’s Secret and Etam, and there are many more in the pipeline. Expect more updates shortly as Syntetica brings more major retail players on board to radically reshape textile supply chains and build a greener future for the fashion industry.
EQT Ventures is always on the lookout for novel approaches to decarbonising legacy industries and early this year launched Climate Brick — the missing manual for scaling climate tech. Read more about how climate tech startups can reach their path to scale here.
