France turns fashion leadership into textile technology leadership
Michelin’s Centre for Sustainable Materials in Clermont-Ferrand, the home of Syntetica's first commercial demonstration facility (photo: Michelin)
Paris-based deeptech company Syntetica has raised €26.1 million in Series A funding to construct what it describes as its first commercial demonstration facility. Developed with Michelin’s Centre for Sustainable Materials in Clermont-Ferrand, the plant is intended to show that mixed nylon waste can be converted back into production-grade raw materials at industrially relevant volumes.
The round was led by the Ecotechnologies 2 fund, managed by Bpifrance on behalf of the French government. Its unusually broad investor list spans fashion, manufacturing and finance: lululemon, textile manufacturer MAS Holdings, EQT Ventures and family offices associated with Peugeot, Etam and a major shareholder in Indorama Ventures all participated. Syntetica has also received support from the European Innovation Council.
The company is part of a French textile-technology cluster addressing different sections of the same value chain. Syntetica is working on nylon recycling; EverDye on lower-impact colouration; Carbios on enzymatic polyester recycling; Nouvelles Fibres Textiles on sorting and waste preparation; and Fairbrics on making polyester ingredients from captured carbon dioxide.
The problem hidden inside nylon
Founded in 2023 by Marco Bertone and Louis Monsigny, Syntetica is initially concentrating on Nylon 6 and Nylon 6,6. These are related but chemically distinct polymers used in products ranging from sportswear, underwear and hosiery to carpets, tyre components and engineering materials.
That distinction creates a problem at the end of a product’s life. Recycling processes generally work best with clean, consistently sorted feedstock. Used textiles arrive as a disorderly mixture of fibres, elastane, dyes, coatings, prints, fasteners and other contaminants. Different nylon types add another layer of sorting and processing complexity.
Syntetica says its proprietary chemical process can handle Nylon 6 and Nylon 6,6 together. The material is deconstructed into molecular components, which are purified to remove additives and contaminants before being repolymerised into what the company describes as virgin-quality nylon.
“For decades, mixed nylon waste has been considered too complex and too expensive to recycle at scale,” said Bertone, Syntetica’s chief executive. “We have shown that it is possible to recover high-value materials from the waste streams the industry has historically written off.”
The commercial opportunity could be considerable. Citing Textile Exchange’s Materials Market Report, Syntetica says approximately seven million tonnes of nylon were produced globally in 2024, while recycled material accounted for only around 2% of the market.
Syntetica is already working with Victoria’s Secret and French lingerie group Etam. Its new investors add further routes into the market: lululemon is a significant user of performance fabrics, while MAS Holdings manufactures clothing for international brands.
The Michelin partnership may prove more important still. Michelin brings expertise in polymer chemistry, materials testing and industrial production that a young recycling company cannot easily recreate. It also underlines that Syntetica’s potential market extends beyond clothing into automotive components and speciality materials.
From cleaner colours to recovered fibres
Syntetica is one part of a broader attempt to rebuild the textile system around different materials and processes.
As MTN previously reported in its examination of EverDye, the Romainville-based materials science company is targeting one of the industry’s most environmentally intensive production stages: dyeing.
EverDye has developed bio-based, charge-active pigments that attach to treated fibres through electrostatic attraction. The company says this enables colouration at room temperature, reducing the heat, water and auxiliary chemicals required by conventional dyeing. It raised €15 million in 2025 to support industrial deployment.
The two businesses address different problems, but they share an important commercial principle. Cleaner textile technologies are more likely to be adopted if manufacturers can introduce them without replacing entire production lines. EverDye has designed its pigments to work in existing dyehouses. Syntetica wants its recycled polymers to function as substitutes for virgin materials in established manufacturing processes.
Compatibility reduces one barrier, but it does not remove the need to prove repeatability, quality and cost at scale. In MTN’s interview with EverDye, chief executive Philippe Berlan acknowledged that its pigments would probably remain more expensive than conventional alternatives on a direct price comparison. The company argues that savings in energy, water, processing time and wastewater treatment can make the overall process competitive.
That system-level economic case will also be central to Syntetica. Recovered nylon must not only perform like virgin material; it must become available in predictable quantities and at a price manufacturers will accept.
Building the missing recycling chain
Elsewhere in France, Clermont-Ferrand-based Carbios is developing enzymatic recycling for polyethylene terephthalate, or PET — the polymer used to make polyester.
Its process uses enzymes to break PET into its original chemical building blocks, which can then be purified and used to manufacture new material. In 2024, Carbios and a consortium including Patagonia, Puma, Salomon, On and PVH unveiled a polyester garment made entirely from textile waste using the process.
The distinction is important. Much of the material marketed as recycled polyester is made from plastic bottles rather than discarded clothing. Turning polyester textiles into new polyester fibres offers a more direct route towards closing the fashion industry’s material loop.
On 21 July, Carbios said its Clermont-Ferrand industrial demonstration plant had completed 100 production batches. The company also announced that it was extending its licensing offer specifically to textile applications — evidence that it is pursuing industrial deployment beyond individual technical demonstrations.
Chemical recycling, however, depends on something less glamorous: obtaining sufficient quantities of suitably prepared waste.
That is the role being developed by Nouvelles Fibres Textiles. The French company combines automated sorting with machinery that removes hard components and tears unwanted clothing into fibres or feedstock for advanced recycling processes.
According to French environmental agency ADEME, its pilot processed around 1,000 tonnes in 2024. The company is targeting 100,000 tonnes by 2030. Carbios and Nouvelles Fibres Textiles have previously discussed a five-year arrangement under which 5,000 tonnes of prepared polyester textiles would be supplied annually for biorecycling.
Paris-based Fairbrics is approaching the raw-material problem from the opposite direction. Instead of recovering existing polyester, it is developing a process that uses captured carbon dioxide to produce the chemical ingredients needed to make it. A €22 million European-backed programme was announced in 2023 to finance pilot and demonstration capacity.
Together, these companies cover an expanding portion of the textile system: raw materials, colour, waste sorting, feedstock preparation and fibre-to-fibre recycling.
Why France — and why now?
France’s emerging position is not explained by fashion heritage alone. The country combines globally influential brands with expertise in chemicals, automotive engineering and industrial manufacturing. It also has a state willing to finance the difficult transition from scientific research to physical infrastructure.
France became the first country to introduce extended producer responsibility for textiles in 2007. The system requires companies placing clothing, footwear and household linen on the French market to contribute towards collection and end-of-life treatment.
That experience has exposed the limitations of the existing system. Refashion, the organisation responsible for administering France’s textile producer-responsibility scheme, identifies heterogeneous fibre blends, buttons, zips, dyes, finishes and coatings as persistent barriers to recycling. Since 2010, it says it has invested more than €5.6 million in 76 recycling projects.
Bpifrance, ADEME, France 2030 and European funding programmes are now helping companies move towards demonstration and commercial facilities. Syntetica’s investor base shows how public funding can be combined with strategic capital from brands, manufacturers and industrial families.
France does not have the field to itself, of course. US companies Circ and Ambercycle, Sweden’s Syre, Australia’s Samsara Eco and other international businesses are also pursuing new methods of textile-to-textile recycling. Circ, which is developing technology to separate and recover polyester and cotton from blended fabrics, plans to build a large facility at Saint-Avold in north-eastern France.
That decision strengthens the French thesis in a different way. France’s opportunity may lie not only in producing domestic startups, but in becoming a place where international textile technologies are financed, demonstrated and industrialised.
A cluster is not yet an industry
The obstacles remain considerable. ADEME estimates that France generates approximately 1.65 million tonnes of textile waste annually, while only around 110,000 tonnes is recycled. Most advanced textile technologies remain at pilot or demonstration stage.
Carbios illustrates both the progress and the difficulty of crossing that divide. Its 100 production batches provide evidence of technical repeatability, but its proposed commercial PET biorecycling plant at Longlaville has faced delays and additional financing requirements. The most recently announced schedule placed commissioning in the first half of 2028, conditional on the remaining funding being secured. Carbios said in December 2025 that pre-commercialisation contracts covered close to half of the plant’s planned capacity and that €42.5 million in public funding had been secured.
Syntetica, meanwhile, has not yet disclosed the planned capacity or opening date of its demonstration facility. Nor did its funding announcement provide detailed comparisons of production cost, energy and water consumption, chemical inputs or the environmental footprint of its process against virgin nylon production.
That said, a commercial demonstration facility is an important step, and it's a fact that France possesses more of the necessary pieces than its reputation for couture alone might suggest: scientific companies, waste-preparation infrastructure, engineering partners, global brands, public capital and an established regulatory framework.
France already helps decide what fashion looks like. Syntetica and its peers are testing whether it can also help decide what fashion is made from — and what happens to it when it is no longer worn.
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