Adidas, Bestseller and H&M are among the latest brand investors in circular fiber innovation.
Infinited Fiber Co. revealed its latest financing round on Monday. The round totaled 30 million euros and closed June 30 and will help Infinited scale its limited-run Infinna fiber made from textile waste.
Just last week, Patagonia said it signed a multiyear deal with Infinited Fiber Co. for access to Infinna. Like Patagonia, H&M Group and Bestseller signed a multiyear sales deal with the company to secure its access to agreed-upon amounts of Infinna from the planned flagship factory.
The flagship was revealed in April and will be located in Finland with annual production capacity of 30,000 metric tons (roughly 100 million T-shirts made with 100 percent Infinna) once open in 2024.
“We’re thrilled to continue our journey with Infinited Fiber Company by further investing in them,” said Nanna Andersen, head of H&M Co:Lab, H&M Group’s investment arm. H&M invested in the company in 2019. “To be joined by other global brands clearly speaks to the shared belief in the scalability of their technology as well as the team behind it. More importantly, it also shows the huge potential that their regenerated textile fiber has in driving the industry toward a more sustainable fashion future.”
Lise Kaae, a board member at Invest FWD (Bestseller’s investment arm), said Infinited “has an opportunity to close the loop in the fashion industry with textile-to-textile recycling,” expressing alignment with the fast-fashion brand’s sustainability aims.
With the ambition to have nine out of 10 products made from sustainable materials by 2025, Adidas’ senior vice president of sustainability Katja Schreiber said, “We believe that impact-at-scale in sustainability will require strong collaboration and look forward to pushing boundaries in cellulose-based materials together with Infinited Fiber Company.”
The recent brand investors, including H&M and Adidas, were found to be “trailing behind” on transparency aims and reducing overall synthetics use in a report from nonprofit Changing Markets Foundation released last week.
By: Kaley Roshitsh
