Bolt Threads, the Emeryville, CA startup that hired former Nau and Patagonia textile guru Jamie Bainbridge, has raised $32.3 million in Series B funding to commercialize its engineered silk technology.
Foundation Capital and Formation 8 co-lead lead Series B funding round, joined by Founders Fund, taking Bolt Threads to commercial production. Bolt Threads has raised a total of $40 million to fuel research and commercialization. Bolt Threads uses proprietary technologies to create “Engineered Silk” fibers based on proteins found in nature. These programmable fibers, which can be tuned to provide superior comfort and performance, represent the most significant innovation the textile industry has seen for decades. Bolt Threads will use its Series B funding to increase production of better, smarter, more sustainable fibers and grow its team of technology and apparel experts.
“While it's one of the oldest industries in existence, I believe textiles is still ripe for innovation,” said Steve Vassallo, general partner at Foundation Capital. “Bolt Threads is uniquely positioned to commercialize technology that people have dreamt about for decades. They have developed a way to make Engineered Silk fibers at a commercial scale, at a cost that makes it viable for widespread use in consumer products something no one else has done. I had been looking into the industry for years before I began working with the founding team in 2010, and I couldn't be more excited about the potential for Bolt Threads’ Engineered Silk to transform the textile industry.”
The process of natural silk production inspired the company’s co-founders, CEO Dan Widmaier, Chief Scientific Officer David Breslauer and Vice President of Operations Ethan Mirsky. They founded the company in 2009 to create materials with exceptional performance properties.
“We started Bolt Threads based on our fascination with the properties of spider silk, particularly how to use the elegant solutions found in nature to create something even better,” said Widmaier. “Our technology combines biology and computational methods to create performance fibers with carefully crafted properties. We’re very excited to sustainably develop the next generation of performance fabrics that will transform what we wear and how we live.”
Bolt Threads is American-based, conducting research at its headquarters in Emeryville, CA and using feedstock grown in the Midwest for production. The company is also collaborating with textile manufacturers in North Carolina to commercially scale production.
The founding team originally received grant funding from multiple sources, including the National Science Foundation, and raised Series A funding from Foundation Capital, Mission Bay Capital, and Zygote Ventures. Each of the Series A participants also contributed to Series B funding, along with Formation 8, Founders Fund and Alafi Capital.
Bainbridge, who is pictured to the left, joined Bolt Threads in February as vice president of product development. Prior to that she served as director of product, textiles and sustainability for Nau, a vertically integrated outdoor apparel start-up that nearly failed in 2008 after being cut off by venture capital investors. Bainbridge has played a key role shaping sustainability standards for the apparel
industry as chair of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) Sustainability
Working Group. She also serves as a member of the Chemical Working Group at the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which is building on the work pioneered by OIA.
Like Nau, Bolt Threads is promising to disrupt its industry. The company says it is creating the next generation of performance fibers and fabrics using proprietary breakthroughs in industrial biotechnology.
“Working at the molecular level, Bolt Threads will transform the textiles market, turning renewable raw materials into products with outstanding properties that meet specific consumer needs,” the company boasts.
