Is textile tech back in fashion? VC announces two deals in one day as sector recalibrates

Berlin based venture capital firm Extantia has announced two investments in one day – and both of them are in textile recycling.

The funds come from Extantia's flagship fund, which closed at €204m in 2024. The firm will likely invest from that fund till the end of the year, the firm's principal Carlota Ochoa Neven Du Mont tells Impact Loop.

Extantia has also started fundraising towards its next fund "of a similar size," she says, without disclosing further details.

The two deals

Extantia has led a €10m seed investment for Renasens, a Swedish startup using supercritical CO2 to recycle blended textile waste for reuse. Course Corrected VC co-invested, with continued backing from Norrsken Launcher, which provided Renasens' first equity of $1m in November 2024.

Extantia has also announced participation in Epoch Biodesign's $12m round led by athletic clothing brand Lululemon – a follow-on investment after Extantia led Epoch's $18.3m Series A in March last year. Founded in 2019 by Jacob Nathan, the London-based startup is developing enzymatic recycling technology for nylon.

A bounce back?

The two investments show signs of renewed investor confidence in textile recycling technology, which took a major hit following the bankruptcy of Renewcell in 2024. The listed company, which at its highest hit a market cap of around $500m, collapse after running out of money but was recently relaunched as Circulose after being bought by Altor Equity, the investment firm founded by prolific Swedish climate tech investor Harald Mix (of Northvolt and Stegra fame).

Other recent deals in the space include German startup Eeden, which raised €18m in a Series A led by Forbion's BioEconomy Fund, and US-based Circ, which closed $25m in March 2025 and announced plans for an industrial-scale polycotton recycling facility in France.

Learning from past mistakes

Ochoa Neven Du Mont says founders and investors can take many lessons from previous failures in the textile recycling space.

"One of them is that you don't always need to raise tens of millions in private equity to build a first-of-a-kind pilot plant," she tells Impact Loop over the phone.

She said that was part of the rational behind Extantia's investment in Renasens, founded in 2022 by Algerian-French chemical engineer Dr. Jade Bouledjouidja.

"I’ve very rarely met someone as relentless and ambitious as Jade. When we first engaged with her late last year, we were astonished at what she'd managed to do with just $1m in equity," says Ochoa Neven Du Mont.

Lean and modular

Renasens has developed a modular reactor that strips dye and separates blended fibres from old clothes using supercritical CO2 – carbon dioxide that behaves simultaneously as a liquid and a gas. The process recovers intact cotton and polyester without water, toxic chemicals, or depolymerisation. The recovered fibres can be used directly in existing spinning infrastructure to make new garments.

"Jade developed the tech almost entirely by herself, de-risked it, assembled a brilliant team, and got a facility ready for a first demo plant," says Ochoa Neven Du Mont. "All with hardly any capital. I've never seen anything like it."

Extantia's investment in Renasens will fund a pilot plant in Borås, Sweden. Renasens' factory is expected to bring more of its recovered fibres to the European market, including extending existing partnerships with in manufacturers in Portugal and Italy.