{"id":135971,"date":"2023-12-12T07:20:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T06:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=135971"},"modified":"2023-12-05T14:28:07","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T13:28:07","slug":"tomtex-raises-seed-round-to-4-15-million-us-dollars-for-shrimp-fabric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/tomtex-raises-seed-round-to-4-15-million-us-dollars-for-shrimp-fabric\/","title":{"rendered":"T\u00f4mTex raises seed round to 4.15 million US dollars for shrimp fabric"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

New York-based sustainable biomaterial producer T\u00f4mTex announced yesterday the closing of a successful seed round at 2.25 million US dollars, winning the support of Happiness Capital, who led the round, and key partners US-based venture capital firm SOSV, environmental non-profit Parley for the Oceans and MIH Capital. The company had raised 1.9 million US dollars in a previous pre-seed round, bringing the total to 4.15 million US dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"The
The new sustainable material. Credits: T\u00f4mTex\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI am excited about our recent fundraising success, which will fuel T\u00f4mTex’s team growth, key hires and expanded manufacturing. Beyond scaling, it’s a strategic step to secure new contracts and revenue, strengthening our market position,\u201d commented T\u00f4mTex founder Uyen Tran in a press release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u00f4mTex has been spotted on the catwalk<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

T\u00f4mTex takes its name from the Vietnamese word for shrimp, t\u00f4m, Tran\u2019s birth country. The company made headlines with their new type of textile made from chitosan, a biopolymer abundant in seafood shells and mushrooms, when the leather-like material was used for catwalk creations at New York Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week by designers and brands like Peter Do, Di Petsa, Dauphinette and Maitrepierre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese collaborations in high fashion showcase the versatility of T\u00f4mTex\u2019s material\u2014which can be custom-moulded, stamped, 3D-printed or simply embossed in different animal leather-style patterns,\u201d explains the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The building material is a white, sandy, odourless powder, which can be found anywhere in nature. The scalability comes from this use of existing food waste matter rather than a lab-grown new material, which can be time-consuming, and costly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe now mainly extract it from shrimp shells because that is a major waste stream from the shellfish industry, but it is in everything, including mushrooms, coffee and insects,\u201d explained T\u00f4mTex engineer Nicole Sved in an earlier interview with FashionUnited<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u00f4mTex uses shell seafood waste and mushrooms<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since then, T\u00f4mTex\u2019s biodegradable material has been divided into two series depending on its origin, Series WS made from shell seafood waste and the new Series M made from mushrooms. The chitosan is then mixed with other \u201cgreen\u201d substances according to the company in a \u201c100 percent green\u201d chemical process to create the textile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The startup recently achieved its first continuous roll-to-roll material production milestone, producing 100 linear feet in this initial run with a plan for a ten times larger follow-up in the next few weeks. \u201cThis will mark the start of the full-scale production ramp aimed at serving larger commercial orders\u2014a major hurdle in the \u2018alternative leather\u2019 segment,\u201d according to T\u00f4mTex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are thrilled to be part of T\u00f4mTex’s journey,\u201d said Eric Ng, general partner at Happiness Capital. \u201cTheir biomaterial technology is a game-changer, not just for its viability in the market but also for its sustainability. Investing in T\u00f4mTex means investing in a scalable platform that has the potential to revolutionize industries while making a positive impact on our environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs you read this, you likely have at least four synthetic leather items, which are, in fact, plastic. These items will persist in our environment for centuries,\u201d added Tien Nguyen, general partner at Earth Venture Capital. \u201cWe are incredibly proud to support T\u00f4mTex to address this problem. As a major player in the global shrimp industry, Vietnam witnesses the massive waste of shrimp shells, aligning perfectly with T\u00f4mTex’s philosophy: \u2018Waste is the new luxury.\u2019 Now is the time for T\u00f4mTex to scale. We are committed to this critical stage of the company, driven by a strong belief in the future of sustainable fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York-based sustainable biomaterial producer T\u00f4mTex announced yesterday the closing of a successful seed round at 2.25 million US dollars, winning the support of Happiness Capital, who led the round, and key partners US-based venture capital firm SOSV, environmental non-profit Parley for the Oceans and MIH Capital. The company had raised 1.9 million US dollars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"The company's biodegradable material has been divided into two series depending on its origin, Series WS made from shell seafood waste and the new Series M made from mushrooms","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[11270,5838,22614,8793,13444,12468],"supplier":[20372,9863,9237,17422],"class_list":["post-135971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biodegradability","tag-bioeconomy","tag-biofeedstocks","tag-biomaterials","tag-fabrics","tag-textiles","supplier-happiness-capital","supplier-parley-for-the-oceans","supplier-sosventures","supplier-tomtex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135971"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=135971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}