Munich/Espoo — Infi­ni­ted Fiber Company, the Finnish manu­fac­tu­rer of a 100% circu­lar waste-to-textile fiber, has raised 40 million euros in a two-part Series B finan­cing round. Foun­ded in 2016, the company has deve­lo­ped a proprie­tary chemi­cal recy­cling tech­no­logy to convert textile waste or other cellu­lose-rich waste into so-called Infinna fibers, a new, 100% circu­lar and sustain­ably rege­ne­ra­ted textile fiber with the same look and feel as new cotton.

The new inves­tors are the Indi­tex Group (parent company of Zara and other brands), and TTY Manage­ment B.V., an asset manage­ment company priva­tely owned by Tada­shi Yanai, Chair­man, Presi­dent and CEO of Fast Retail­ing (parent company of the Uniqlo fashion brand). The leading outdoor clot­hing manu­fac­tu­rer Youngone Infi­ni­ted Fiber Company (YOH CVC Fund 1 Limi­ted Part­ner­ship) and the Japa­nese premium sports­wear manu­fac­tu­rer Gold­win (GOLDWIN Play Earth Fund Invest­ment Limi­ted Part­ner­ship) have also parti­ci­pa­ted in the recently comple­ted second finan­cing round of EUR 27 million. The first part of the deve­lo­p­ment finan­cing round, which was comple­ted in summer 2023, compri­sed invest­ments from exis­ting inves­tors, inclu­ding H&M Group, adidas, BESTSELLER and Zalando. Follo­wing the conclu­sion of this finan­cing round, Indi­tex, TTY Manage­ment and the H&M Group are the largest share­hol­ders of Infi­ni­ted Fiber Company.

Infi­ni­ted Fiber, based in Espoo, Finland, has deve­lo­ped a 100% circu­lar tech­no­logy for conver­ting waste into texti­les that bene­fits from the largest quan­ti­ties of available raw mate­ri­als, inclu­ding cellu­lo­sic products (paper, card­board, etc.) and some agri­cul­tu­ral resi­dues as well as textile waste. Seve­ral limi­ted-edition clot­hing coll­ec­tions, such as Wrang­ler jeans and Tommy Hilfi­ger T‑shirts, have alre­ady been produ­ced with the new fiber.

The company aims to play a signi­fi­cant role in trans­forming the conven­tio­nal mate­rial flow in the fashion and textile indus­try towards a circu­lar economy and is supported by leading inter­na­tio­nal consu­mer brands such as H&M, Indi­tex, Pata­go­nia and PVH. “They have tested the quality of the fiber and confirmed the market poten­tial by signing long-term purchase agree­ments in some cases. Indi­tex alone has signed a contract for more than 100 million euros,” says Falk Müller-Veerse (photo © Bran­Gar­nier), German part­ner at Bryan, Garnier & Co. who led the finan­cing round.

Infi­ni­ted Fiber curr­ently opera­tes two pilot produc­tion faci­li­ties and the newly raised funds will be used to enable the company’s contin­ued growth.

Sustainable textile market booming

The addressa­ble core market of Infi­ni­ted Fiber is esti­ma­ted by the analysts at Bryan, Garnier & Co. at EUR 66 billion and so far mainly compri­ses cotton and MMCF (man-made cellu­lose fiber). The demand for sustain­ably produ­ced texti­les is booming: “Not least due to the new Euro­pean regu­la­ti­ons, the market demand for sustainable fibres in Europe is expec­ted to triple to almost four million tons per year by 2030,” says Müller-Veerse. For exam­ple, under pres­sure from legis­la­tive measu­res and in response to a growing number of envi­ron­men­tally conscious consu­mers, one hundred of the world’s most pres­ti­gious fashion brands have commit­ted to redu­cing their green­house gas emis­si­ons by 30% by 2030.

Accor­ding to Bryan, Garnier & Co., textile produc­tion is respon­si­ble for around 20 percent of global water pollu­tion and around 2,500 liters of fresh water are needed to produce a single cotton T‑shirt. Accor­ding to Infi­ni­ted Fiber, the use of their inno­va­tive fiber results in appro­xi­m­ately 97% less water consump­tion and appro­xi­m­ately 67% less CO2 emis­si­ons per T‑shirt produ­ced compared to the use of pure cotton.

Müller-Veerse empha­si­zes: “It’s not just about repla­cing cotton produc­tion with its horren­dous water consump­tion. The new mate­rial could also replace up to 20% of the poly­es­ter fibers used world­wide today and is comple­tely biode­gra­da­ble without bioplastics.”

The Bryan, Garnier & Co deal team consis­ted of Falk Müller-Veerse, Pierre Kiecolt-Wahl, Phil­ippe LeSann , Julien Polenne, Grego­ire Angleys, Jean Cail­liau, Jakub Veiner and Camille Dubroc.

About Bryan, Garnier & Co

Bryan, Garnier & Co, foun­ded in 1996 in Paris and London, is an invest­ment bank focu­sed on Euro­pean growth compa­nies with over 200 employees in six offices in Europe (London, Paris, Munich, Stock­holm, Oslo, Amster­dam) and the US (New York). As an inde­pen­dent, full-service invest­ment bank, Bryan, Garnier & Co provi­des compre­hen­sive finan­cing advice and support along the complete life­cy­cle of its clients — from initial rounds of finan­cing to a poten­tial sale or IPO with subse­quent follow-on finan­cing. On average, the bank accom­pa­nies a good 70 tran­sac­tions per year.