Why We Invested in MycoWorks
Prime Movers Lab is proud to announce that we are leading a $125 million Series C financing round in MycoWorks, which is bioengineering high-performance materials from mycelium — the incredibly versatile ‘root-system’ of fungus. Drawing on more than three decades of pioneering research and innovation by its founding team, MycoWorks’ proprietary Fine Mycelium platform is enabling a new class of premium, non-animal materials that are the next evolution in bioengineering.
The company’s patented process produces natural material that matches the performance of the finest animal leathers with significantly less environmental impact. It is a proprietary biotechnology platform that engineers mycelium to grow the only made-to-order, made-to-specification luxury material. Recognized globally as a breakthrough in materials science, Fine Mycelium-grown materials offer superior feel, durability, and aesthetics with the potential to transform not only the luxury good industry, but also the broader fashion, upholstery, and automotive industries.
The $164 billion dollar leather value chain is currently composed of traditional animal leather (calf, cowhide, sheep, exotics) and synthetics (primarily PolyVinyl Chloride, “PVC” and Polyurethane, “PU”). The industry is highly fragmented and heavily controlled by a concentrated group of large brands and tanneries. Because the industry is inefficient and subject to the risks inherent in animal agriculture, leather products have a lengthy time to market and unscalable supply chains, making it ripe for disruption.
MycoWorks’ Fine Mycelium is vertically integrated, making it easier to transform brands’ supply chains with increased traceability, minimized waste, and post-processing. This predictable, scalable tray-based process offers much-needed relief to supply chain constraints that are impacting businesses around the world. Imagine producing leather on demand, to your specifications, across the street from your factory.
In addition, the traditional leather industry is plagued by animal cruelty and pollution. Traditional cow leather generates 80–152kg of carbon dioxide per square meter of leather produced. Consumer values around sustainability are rapidly changing and brands across multiple segments are turning to solutions like MycoWorks’ Fine Mycelium to mitigate supply chain risks and waste costs associated with the traditional leather industry while improving their environmental impact and sustainability metrics. With more and more companies committing to sustainability and carbon neutrality, we believe MycoWorks is well-positioned for incredible commercial traction as it scales production.
The company’s approach also unlocks new design possibilities for fashion and luxury brands. Fine Mycelium enables unprecedented levels of control over inputs and design at the material level. Brands can select and customize the thickness, weight, hand, and drape of Fine Mycelium materials. MycoWorks can grow Fine Mycelium to exact specifications and create perfectly uniform, high-quality sheets at scale. Because of its product quality, MycoWorks will be able to pursue partnerships with high-end companies. MycoWorks launched its first partnership with Hermès in Spring of 2021 and has contracts in place with a range of major global luxury brands.
What MycoWorks has achieved with its Fine Mycelium platform is not just a breakthrough, it is a revolution for industries that are ripe for change. This opportunity is massive and we believe that unrivaled product quality combined with a proprietary scalable manufacturing process has MycoWorks poised to serve as the backbone of the new materials revolution.
We are incredibly proud to support the MycoWorks team in this next chapter.
