Syntetica raises $30 million for nylon recycling plant in France

Paris-based Syntetica has raised $30 million in Series A funding to build its first commercial demonstration facility for nylon recycling in France. The round gives the materials startup capital to move its process beyond the lab, though Syntetica did not disclose its valuation, revenue, headcount or a detailed plant budget.

The financing was led by the Ecotechnologies 2 fund, which Bpifrance manages on behalf of the French government. Other participants included Lululemon, MAS Holdings, existing backer EQT Ventures, Bpifrance itself and the European Innovation Council.

Syntetica is targeting a hard part of textile recycling: recovering Nylon 6 and Nylon 6,6 from mixed fabrics using one process. Those two polymers are widely used across apparel, consumer goods and industrial textiles, but separating them has been one of the technical barriers to building meaningful recycled nylon supply.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Marco Bertone said the company has shown it can recover valuable materials from nylon waste streams that the apparel industry has treated as impractical to recycle. That is a company claim, and Syntetica did not disclose unit economics, yield rates or customer pricing for the recycled output.

From pilot claims to production scale

The new facility will be built in France in partnership with Michelin’s Centre for Sustainable Materials in Clermont-Ferrand. Syntetica said the plant is intended to process hundreds of tons of textile waste per year, a useful step up from laboratory work but still small relative to global nylon production.

Textile Exchange, a nonprofit focused on sustainability in apparel and materials, reported that global nylon output reached about 7.7 million tons in 2024. Despite demand for circular materials, recycled nylon remains under 2% of the overall nylon market, according to the figures cited by Syntetica’s announcement.

The scale gap is the core issue for investors and apparel buyers. Brands need lower-impact materials in volumes large enough to affect sourcing, while recyclers need predictable waste streams and economics that compete with virgin petrochemical inputs. Syntetica’s announcement names Victoria’s Secret and Etam among brands it is already working with, but it did not specify contract values, offtake commitments or production timelines.

Why nylon is attracting capital

Nylon is durable by design and does not biodegrade readily. Discarded nylon garments can remain in landfills for centuries, and degradation can release microplastics as well as chemical additives, dyes and heavy metals into surrounding soil and water systems. Incineration avoids landfill persistence but creates greenhouse gas and toxic emissions that must be controlled.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has reported that more than 80% of textiles thrown away by households are incinerated, sent to landfill or abandoned. For nylon specifically, Syntetica also argues that recycling can reduce Europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels and petrochemical-derived feedstocks. The company says producing nylon uses roughly twice as much energy per kilogram as polyester and requires significant water in cooling, spinning and chemical processing.

Syntetica said it plans to apply its technology to more materials over time, including other textiles, automotive materials and specialty materials. For now, the Series A is a scale-up test: whether a process that claims to handle mixed nylon can operate reliably enough to matter to apparel supply chains beyond pilot volumes.

This story draws on original reporting from SiliconANGLE.