The materials developer formerly known as ELeather has a new name and $18 million in fresh growth funding from some of the worldโs fanciest brands.
Now going by Generation Phoenix, the upcycler says its new investors include Coach parent Tapestry, Jaguar Land Rover (via InMotion Ventures) and Dr. Martens, plus lead investor Material Impact and prior investor Hermรจs.
The 15-year-old firm is based in Peterborough, U.K., and has worked with brands such as Nike and Delta. The upcycler intends to use the new cash to expand โinto the luxury fashion and footwear categories,โ Gen Phoenix said in a statement. The company claims it has diverted more than 8,000 tons of leather waste from landfills to date.
โImagine what can happen when waste is no longer wasted,โ Gen Phoenix says in an aspirational message on its new website. The upcycler tells TechCrunch that its โfeedstock comes directly from tanneries where about 1/3 of a leather hide is typically discarded.โ Turning the leather waste into a usable, leather-like product involves shredding and โentanglingโ it โaround a high-performance core using nothing but high pressure water,โ the firm said.
Gen Phoenixโs โrecycled leatherโ is not entirely made of recycled materials. A spokesperson for the company tells TechCrunch that its products feature โup to 86% recycled content,โ including recycled leather and recycled plastic. Still, the firmโs final product also contains virgin plastic.
Gen Phoenix founder and CEO John Kennedy explaining the companyโs leather-like product. Image Credits: Gen Phoenix
Without sharing a specific deadline, a spokesperson for Gen Phoenix said the company aims to โreduce and eliminate virgin materials from their products completely.โ
The upcycler is also โcommercialising a bio-based coating system and bio-based substitutions for any synthetic materials used in the process,โ the spokesperson added. Hopefully, weโll soon see Gen Phoenix kick virgin materials altogether.
Zooming out: Gen Phoenixโs inclusion of plastics is hardly unusual, even for โsustainableโ brands. Fossil fuelโbased materials permeate the fashion business. Polyester? Nylon? Elastane? All plastic.
Even the rise of recycled plastic fabrics warrants deep skepticism; the resulting synthetic clothing is rarely recycled, and the microplastics they shed go basically everywhere, including the ocean, mountaintops, the insides of sea critters and even our own bodies. Addressing the industryโs climate and broader environmental toll demands rethinking everything, from how we dye fabrics to killing โfast fashionโ altogether.
Gen Phoenixโs upcycled leather woos luxury brand investors by Harri Weber originally published on TechCrunch