Lululemon Invests in Nylon Recycler Syntetica as Start-up Raises $30 Million in Series A Funding

On July 16, French materials recycling company Syntetica announced that it had raised $30 million in a Series A funding round.

The round was led by Ecotechnologies 2, a fund managed by French public investment bank Bpifrance. Activewear brand Lululemon and MAS Holdings, one of the world’s largest apparel manufacturers, also participated in the investment.

Summary

Other participants included SWEN Capital Partners, existing investor EQT Ventures, and family offices linked to Peugeot and Etam. A family office associated with a major shareholder of Indorama Ventures also invested.

Syntetica was founded in 2023 by Marco Bertone and Louis Monsigny. In 2024, the company raised €4.2 million in a seed funding round led by EQT Ventures.

Breaking the Mixed-Material Barrier

Nylon 6 and Nylon 6,6, both widely used in apparel, have different chemical structures. Traditionally, each has required a separate recycling process, making it difficult to treat post-consumer garments containing multiple types of nylon and other fibers.

Sportswear, swimwear and outdoor apparel frequently combine nylon with materials such as elastane, polyester and cotton. The need to identify and separate these materials before recycling has created significant barriers in terms of cost and processing capacity.

Syntetica has developed a proprietary chemical depolymerization technology that breaks nylon down at the molecular level. The process is designed to separate and recover both Nylon 6 and Nylon 6,6 from nylon-rich blended textiles through a single system.

Operating at low temperatures without pressurization, the process also removes dyes and finishing agents. The recovered materials can then be converted into recycled nylon of a quality comparable to virgin material and incorporated into existing manufacturing supply chains.

According to Textile Exchange, global nylon production reached approximately 7 million tons in 2024. Recycled nylon, however, accounted for only around 2 percent of the market, leaving the industry heavily dependent on virgin nylon derived from fossil fuels.

Developing a Commercial Demonstration Facility With Michelin

Syntetica plans to use the newly raised capital to develop its first commercial demonstration facility in France.

The facility will be established through a partnership with Michelin’s Centre for Sustainable Materials in Clermont-Ferrand, France. It is intended to move the company’s technology from the laboratory stage toward industrial production, with the goal of processing several hundred tons of textile waste annually.

Rather than producing fibers or finished products itself, Syntetica will manufacture recycled nylon pellets through its recycling process. These pellets can then be supplied to manufacturers that convert them into yarn and fabric, allowing the recycled material to enter existing apparel production networks.

Bertone commented on the fundraising: “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.”

The company is currently working on recycling projects with several global brands, including Victoria’s Secret and Etam.

Lululemon Expands Its Investment in Next-Generation Nylon

The investment builds on Lululemon’s broader materials innovation strategy.

The company has also collaborated with Australian recycling technology company Samsara Eco on technologies designed to regenerate Nylon 6,6 and polyester from used garments. In 2025, the two companies announced a 10-year agreement aimed at securing a long-term supply of recycled raw materials.

Lululemon is also working with biotechnology company ZymoChem to commercialize Nylon 6,6 made from plant-derived feedstocks.

Rather than relying on a single solution, Lululemon is supporting chemical recycling, enzymatic recycling and bio-based materials in parallel. Its investment in Syntetica broadens the company’s ability to address post-consumer garments containing blended fibers, which have historically been difficult to recover.

Competition in textile recycling is moving beyond proving that technologies can work in a laboratory. The next phase is focused on industrializing those technologies while achieving the required quality, pricing and production volumes.

By bringing together brands, apparel manufacturers, materials companies and public investment institutions, the latest funding round could offer a new model for moving circular materials beyond limited pilot projects and into the wider supply chain.

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