Material World: The Heyday of Hemp
Material World is a weekly roundup of innovations and ideas within the materials sector, covering news from emerging biomaterials and alternative leathers to sustainable substitutes and future-proof fibers.
Revoltech
German startup Revoltech is utilizing the leftover residues of CBD-based products to make a sustainable and circular leather substitute from hemp fibers.
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“We work very closely with some hemp farmers here in Germany and in France, and we work with hemp that’s specifically grown for either nutritional purposes—so the hemp seeds that are usually used for protein as a plant-based source—and then also the leaves that are used for CBD oil production,” Lucas Fuhrmann, co-founder of Revoltech, said. “And we really use the byproduct of these industries, which is like the stem of the hemp plant where you have some fibrous material, and this is basically our starting point.”
Revoltech was founded in 2021 by Fuhrmann, Montgomery Wagner and Julian Mushövel with the goal of transforming the leather industry with its plastic-free and animal-based product LOVR, which stands for “leather-like-without-plastic-vegan-residue-based,” made from hemp fibers. The startup spent five years in research and development with the Technical University Darmstadt in Germany before launching in order to figure out what agro-industrial waste would be best suited for a leather alternative.
“We’re very closely linked to the Technical University’s departments of biology, chemistry and mechanical engineering,” Fuhrmann said. “That’s really the area where we starting priming, in this entire intersection of these three areas.”
Hemp wasn’t always the primary fiber Revoltech studied. The group also looked into banana fiber, but it was a logistical challenge to implement. Hemp was also a challenge; it’s a coarse, stiff fiber with a reputation for being less-than-sexy in both feel and look.
“We said, OK, we need to come up with a different process, we can’t just use the standard textile process [so] we really went into a different direction of not making a yarn first,” Fuhrmann said. “We went, basically, in the direction of making a non-woven and then put a lot of effort in treating the fibers in a specific way, which I can’t disclose, but it’s different, like basically a mechanical process that helps us work with the fiber.”
Last May, the company closed a seven-figure seed round for its leather substitute, led by its partners B.value, a German early-stage investor supporting synthetic biology and advanced materials; VMH, an independent investment adviser and banking boutique; and HEAG Gründerfonds, a company that offers equity-like loans for young companies in their growth phase. The funds raised will help to bring the material out of the lab, develop operations and expand production.
“But you can’t compare [the funding] to anything that’s happening in the States; we’re still in Germany, everything is a bit more toned down here [so] it’s a different ballgame, a different game we’re playing in Europe,” Furhmann said. “There’s a lot of government support and we can still use all the lab space here at the university for free. There’s a very strong manufacturing landscape in Germany as well [which] we can plug into existing machinery.”
Matter
Microplastics technology and innovation company Matter, known for finding solutions for capturing, harvesting and recycling microplastics, announced that it has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round. The funding should help the Bristol-based company scale its microplastic filtration technology and speed up its “roadmap of solutions for commercial and industrial applications.”
Microplastics—tiny plastic particles less than five millimeters in size—are the textile industry’s latest villain. For each laundry cycle, up to 70,000 microplastic fibers are released from washing machines into waterways, Matter said, with an estimated 171 trillion microplastic particles in the oceans. To combat this, Matter works with domestic and commercial laundry appliance manufacturers to integrate its technology into their products—ahead of the French legislation requiring all washing machines to be fitted with microfiber filters by January 2025. The startup is also partnering with textile manufacturers and brands to help them better understand and prevent microplastic pollution during manufacturing.
“Matter’s vision is to live in a world without micropollutants. We are dedicated to building the necessary tools, techniques and scalable solutions to drive this transformation,” Adam Root, founder and CEO of Matter, said. “We knew from the start that as a small company intent on tackling this global problem, we’d need to work with partners who have the scale, vision and resources to help us deliver our technology as quickly and effectively as possible. The combined support and expertise of our investors enables us to accelerate our work, moving beyond laundry into industry-scale applications of our technology and drive globally meaningful reductions in micropollutant emissions with confidence and speed.”
S2G Ventures, the direct investment team for Builders Vision, led the round, along with SoundWaves, the sustainability-focused investment fund led by Guy Oseary and Ashton Kutcher. Kate Danaher of S2G Ventures and Katherine Keating of SoundWaves will both join Matter’s expanded board of directors.
“As established partners of Matter, we’ve been impressed by the relentless determination and speed at which they’ve been able to develop innovative solutions and demonstrate an instant impact on the industry,” Danaher, managing director at S2G Ventures, said. “Continued investments in solutions like the ones Matter provide are critical, if not essential, to ensuring the long-term health of our oceans, and subsequently, the overall health of our planet.”
Additional investment came from the Leonardo DiCaprio-backed consumer climate-tech fund Regeneration.VC and Katapult Ocean, which made a significant follow-on investment via its Deep Blue Fund since co-leading the seed investment round, along with a few strategic investors.
“Matter’s micro-filtration technology is class-leading and represents a crucial defense against the continuous flow of microplastic pollution from our homes, workplaces and built environments,” Keating, managing partner at SoundWaves, said. “Legislation is inevitable given the ecological and health impacts of microplastic pollution that are becoming better understood every day, and we are already working with Matter to realize the commercial relationships required to bring this impact to industrial scales, mitigating thousands of tonnes [sic] of plastic materials entering our environment every year from textile production and industrial wastewater processes.”
With this funding, Matter said it will leverage its core technology to develop “scalable solutions” to stop microplastic and micropollutant pollution from entering domestic, industrial and municipal water systems. Those solutions will capture the microplastics, which would otherwise end in sewage sludge, to be used as fertilizer or be incinerated.
Sabai
Sabai, a Black and Asian-owned furniture brand, wants to “furnish the future.”
“Our brand identity up until this point was meant to convey sustainability—and it’s done a great job of that,” Phantila Phataraprasit, Sabai’s founder, said. “Sabai 2.0, however, is built on the premise that we get to define what sustainability looks like in the future. Eco-friendly can still be fashionable and planet-positive does not mean crunchy granola. Our vision of sustainability is fun, sexy and forward looking.”
The brand is utilizing cocolok fiber, a natural fiber material made from a mix of coconut fibers and natural rubber, “wherever possible” in lieu of the traditionally used polyester upholstery fiber. The fiber is relatively new to the U.S. market, the compnay said, and so it had to have the material tested to make sure it met U.S. material standards, specifically the material regulations coming out of California, including Cal117, which requires that certain upholsteries pass a smolder and open flame test.
“We’re doubling down on what’s proven successful for Sabai,” Phataraprasit noted. “Nontoxic, eco-friendly seating that can grow with you. We believe that as the effects of climate change grow more and more apparent, consumers today will increasingly prioritize earth friendly products. We’ve developed these new seating lines with just that theory in mind—eco-friendly shouldn’t mean lack of options in style or comfort.”
Sabai sources its cocolok fiber from Enkev, an Asian manufacturer specializing in engineering and producing circular, biodegradable materials. The fiber is collected from the coconut husk, a widely available resource, Enkev said, with coconut palms growing 10 million hectares of land throughout the tropics. While the food industry is the primary consumer of coconuts, they’re only interested in the meat, discarding the fibers as waster material, which Enkev then gives a new life. The resulting product has a high lignin content and, despite its toughness, remains elastic.
“With these new styles, Sabai rethinks how furniture is constructed by incorporating innovative, low-impact, natural and nontoxic materials,” Phataraprasit said. “The cocolok fiber is a byproduct of the food industry—it’s an all-natural coconut fiber that’s replacing our synthetic fibers and foam and it’s naturally hypoallergenic, antimicrobial and dust-mite resistant. While our synthetic fibers and foam are maintaining Sabai’s standards of no added toxins—the new cocolok fiber will be biodegradable and not produced using plastic—decreasing our total impact overall.”
Sabai has also ramped up its hemp assortment, now offering the Evergreen Collection in hemp variants or with recycled velvet.
“On the hemp front, we have always loved the look and feel of linen sofas. Linen, however, is made from the flax plant, which can deplete the soil it’s grown in after a few years,” Phataraprasit said. “Our hemp fabric achieves this same wonderfully breathable and comfortable feel with additional benefits and less harmful environmental effects. Hemp fibers are eight times stronger than linen, more durable and more UV-resistant. Hemp is also an extremely productive crop, producing more fiber per plot of land and being regenerative rather than depletive to the soil.”
