Natural Fiber Welding, Inc. (NFW) announced it had closed an $85 million funding round to scale production of its all-natural circular material products coming to market through its global brand partners.
Evolution VC Partners led the round, with participation by Tattarang, Lewis & Clark AgriFood, Collaborative Fund, AiiM Partners, Engine No.1, Raga Partners, Tidal Impact, Scrum Ventures, and Gaingels. Return investors include BMW i Ventures, Ralph Lauren Corporation, Advantage Capital, and Central Illinois Angels.
Founded in 2015, NFW is a materials company supplying the global footwear, fashion, accessories, and automotive industries with new material platforms to create low carbon, all-natural, bio-neutral products. NFW engineers and manufactures Clarus performance all-natural textiles and Mirum, a zero-plastic complement to leather.
According to its website, the company notes Patagonia, Allbirds, H&M, Chaco, Ralph Lauren, Alexander McQueen (MCQ), Wooly, Richemont, Camper, BMW, Modher, Bellroy, Mercedes-Benz, Pangaia, and Segan as clients.
NFW will use the Series B funding to continue scaling the Clarus and Mirum materials platforms to meet global demand. The Peoria, IL-based company also extends its product offerings to molded composite materials.
“We envision a world that doesn’t rely on plastic, where abundant natural materials enable people and the planet to thrive together,” said Luke Haverhals, CEO and founder. “We’re here to leave the world better than we found it, and we look forward to working with our brand partners to build a comprehensively circular coalition for the planet.”
“In our 24/7 mission to help industry wean us all from toxic and indestructible plastic, we meet a lot of well-intended innovators who are not fixing the root cause of the plastic crisis but giving polluters a fig leaf bandaid,” said Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet. “So you can imagine how excited we were to meet Dr. Luke Haverhals of NFW and learn of their radical imagining of how we create future materials. Dr. Haverhals simplifies this revolution with characteristic humility, but from our global viewpoint, NFW will be the pioneers of an extraordinary rethink in how we take, make and waste, creating a new language of materials, nutrients that remain nutrients throughout their entire lifecycles, materials that nature freely gives, and happily takes back. This is just the beginning, but NFW is already scaling fast, soon replacing toxic synthetic materials in the millions of tons. May others follow fast in these new tracks on a very different path.”
Photo courtesy NFW
