- French deeptech startup Syntetica has raised $30 million in Series A funding from Lululemon and MAS Holdings, one of the world’s largest apparel manufacturers.
- This is Lululemon’s second investment in a nylon-recycling startup, after its partnership with Australia’s Samsara Eco.
- Recycled nylon makes up about 2% of the global nylon market. The new funding will help build Syntetica’s first plant with Michelin.
Lululemon usually does not announce supply chain projects two years in advance. With Syntetica, the partnership was set up before any investment.
The Paris-based deeptech company that recycles nylon textile waste has closed a $30 million Series A round led by Bpifrance’s Ecotechnologies 2 fund.
Other investors include SWEN Capital Partners, existing backer EQT Ventures, family offices linked to Peugeot, Etam, and Indorama Ventures, Lululemon and MAS Holdings, a major apparel manufacturer and production partner.
“For decades, mixed nylon waste has been considered too complex and too expensive to recycle at scale. This funding allows us to move from breakthrough chemistry to industrial reality and accelerate the transition to more circular materials,” says Marco Bertone, co-founder and chief executive officer of Syntetica.
Two years of collaboration came before the investment
Bertone tells Tech Funding News that Syntetica worked with Lululemon confidentially for about two years before the investment. He calls this a deliberate strategy: “Lululemon is a pioneer and leader in transforming this industry to a circular economy, and they’re leading by investment, really taking bets on their future supply chain.”
This is similar to Lululemon’s partnership with Samsara Eco, which involved a $100 million Series A investment and a 10-year offtake agreement for up to 20% of its fibre portfolio.
Bertone points out that MAS Holdings usually waits to see which recycling technology succeeds before investing. “For them to invest shows their confidence in Syntetica and the scale of the problem,” he says.
Sid Amalean, a director at MAS Holdings, adds, “Recycling technology succeeds when brand commitment, manufacturing partnership, and industrial scale-up expertise all converge – and Syntetica is one of the few ventures in this space that has brought all of these together. We’re excited to support Syntetica to scale their technology by leveraging MAS’ apparel manufacturing expertise. We see this investment as a strategic move for the industry as a whole.”
A focused approach to recycling
Syntetica was founded in 2023 by Bertone and chief technology officer Louis Monsigny, who met at the Entrepreneur First accelerator in Paris. Bertone is originally from Italy, grew up in London, and has lived in Paris for six years. He started his career in fashion resale marketplaces before moving into science-driven impact ventures. Monsigny brought experience in plastics recycling.
“Textiles were at a cusp of change, where some materials, especially nylon, had no solutions but a strong pain point,” Bertone says.
The startup uses a low-temperature green chemistry process to recycle Nylon 6 and Nylon 6,6 together, eliminating the need to separate them first. Bertone says other companies have not managed this because the two materials are chemically indistinguishable once mixed into textile waste. Nylon 6 is common in fast fashion, while Nylon 6,6 is more heat-resistant and used in airbags, tyre cords, and technical apparel like Lululemon’s leggings.
“Our process is like a sniper; it attacks the nylon and leaves everything else behind,” Bertone explains. For example, in leggings blended with elastane, the elastane stays intact and can be reused. Aquafil, the Italian maker of Econyl, has chemically recycled Nylon 6 from fishing nets since 2011, but not together with Nylon 6,6. France’s Carbios, which has raised over $77 million, has focused on polyester instead of nylon.
Bertone did not share the pilot-scale cost per kilogram of recycled nylon, saying Syntetica is “scaling an extremely cost-competitive process” that aims to match the price of new nylon at scale, which was important for Lululemon and MAS Holdings. Syntetica’s first patent is public but still pending, with several more filed and five additional applications submitted this year.
Alexandre Wagner, investment director at Bpifrance Green Venture, says, “Syntetica has developed a differentiated technology that addresses one of the textile industry’s most complex recycling challenges. We are pleased to support the company’s next phase of growth as it scales its technology and manufacturing capabilities in France, which is in line with our investment strategy.”
What’s next?
Syntetica raised $4.58 million in a July 2024 seed round led by EQT Ventures, which Tech Funding News covered at the time, bringing total funding to about $34.5 million. The new funding will pay for a commercial demonstration facility with Michelin at its Centre for Sustainable Materials in Clermont-Ferrand. Bertone expects it to be running within 18 months and to produce commercial amounts of recycled nylon.
Syntetica’s team has grown to about 22 people, with plans to reach 30 by the end of the year and 45 by the end of next year. Bertone did not share revenue figures. The company now works with Victoria’s Secret and Etam and plans to expand into the automotive and speciality chemicals sectors.
Bertone expects that Lululemon’s approach with Syntetica will set a new standard for the industry. “What we’re expecting is really a landscape shift from small, isolated collections to systemic, industry-wide change, as commercial volumes of recycled output become available,” he says. He also notes similar progress in polyester and cotton recycling as the 2030 sustainability targets approach.
If Lululemon’s investment in Syntetica follows the Samsara Eco model, a formal offtake agreement will likely be next. With commercial output expected in 18 months and unit economics still unknown, the main question is whether MAS Holdings’ investment means manufacturers, not just brands, will shape the future of recycling technology.
