Lululemon Backs French Recycling Start-up Syntetica in $30 Million Series A Round

MAS Holdings also joined the round to build the company’s first commercial demonstration facility to recycle two types of nylon.

PARIS — French start-up Syntetica has raised $30 million in a series A funding round backed by Lululemon and manufacturer MAS Holdings, as the textile industry looks for ways to scale recycling of synthetic fibers from discarded clothing. The funding will support the development of Syntetica's first commercial demonstration facility in France, where the company aims to industrialize a patented process that can recycle two major types of nylon — Nylon 6 and Nylon 6,6 — in a single process. More from WWD Most existing nylon recycling technology requires different nylon types to be separated before they can be processed, limiting the amount of post-consumer textile waste that can be recovered.

Syntetica's technology is designed to process mixed nylon waste, potentially expanding the pool of materials available for recycling. The round was led by Bpifrance's Ecotechnologies 2 fund, with additional participation from Swen Capital Partners, existing investor EQT Ventures, and family offices linked to Peugeot, Etam and the largest shareholder of Indorama Ventures. Nylon production reached around 7 million tons globally in 2024, according to Textile Exchange's Materials Market Report.

Yet recycled nylon accounts for only about 2 percent of the market, as technical and economic challenges have limited the recovery of nylon from used textiles. For apparel companies seeking to reduce reliance on virgin fossil fuel-based materials, improving textile recycling has become a growing priority. But mixed fibers, complex garment construction and fragmented collection systems have made post-consumer recycling difficult to scale.

"For decades, mixed nylon waste has been considered too complex and too expensive to recycle at scale. We have shown that it is possible to recover high-value materials from the waste streams the industry has historically written off. This funding allows us to move from breakthrough chemistry to industrial reality and accelerate the transition to more circular materials," said Syntetica cofounder and chief executive officer Marco Bertone.

The company, founded by Bertone and Louis Monsigny, is already working with brands including Victoria's Secret and Etam, it said. The demonstration facility will be developed through Syntetica's partnership with Michelin's Centre for Sustainable Materials in Clermont-Ferrand, France. The site is expected to help move the company's technology from laboratory scale toward industrial production, with a target of processing hundreds of tons of textile waste annually.