Recovo, the comprehensive end-to-end circular solutions platform for the fashion industry, closes a €1 million financing round. The deal is led by Zubi Capital through its new impact and diversity Venture Capital fund, and HearstLab. They are joined by Bolsa Social and Club Impact Angels and existing investors who had already backed Recovo, including Telegraph Hill Capital (THCAP) who led the previous round, Draper B1 and Business Angels from Seed Rocket.
With this round of funding, Recovo is on a mission to further advance circular fashion and take the company to the next level. As Monica Rodriguez, CEO and Co-Founder of Recovo says, “This capital will be used to reinforce our commitment to making a large-scale impact on the fashion industry through investment in technology for our platform and international expansion into international markets.”
Zubi Capital, a fund manager specializing in investing in alternative assets with a triple impact: social, environmental, and positive economic, has led this investment round. The new fund manager thus supports a powerful, diverse, and multidisciplinary team with extensive experience in the sector and with which they connect. As Carmen Pumariño, Investment Director of Venture Capital’s strategy says, “The three founders know the challenge facing the textile industry in terms of sustainability and are obsessed with solving it. It is a purpose-driven, robust, united team with strong ambition and a solid track record. Moreover, we believe the market momentum is right.” He adds, “Recovo will be instrumental in driving circularity and the industry’s sustainability journey.”
Recovo has become the first investment in Spain by HearstLab, the investment arm of Hearst Corporation that invests exclusively in companies founded and led by women. Azahara Espejo, Country Manager of HearstLab in Spain, emphasizes that “the current regulatory framework has made sustainability go from being an added value for certain companies to an obligation for all. Recovo has the potential to become the most complete tool to ensure circularity in the retail sector at an international level and from HearstLab and Hearst we will support them in this objective”.
Recovo’s growth and goals
Since Recovo was founded in 2021, the company has experienced rapid growth and has established itself in the Spanish territory as a benchmark platform in textile sustainability. In the last year 2022, the company grew by 800% compared to 2021 and already has more than 773 clients among which stand-out companies such as ABOUT YOU, Polopiqué, Brownie, Mango, Pronovias, Sepiia, SKFK, Intexteis, Persiskin, Laagam, JC Pajares, Deadwood and Alfie Paris. Recovo now operates in more than 16 countries in the European Union and has more than 20 employees, reaffirming its position in the Spanish market. In addition, the company has managed to recover 1.7M meters of fabrics so that other brands and designers can reuse them and reduce the environmental impact by giving them a second life creating unique pieces.
The leading circular solutions platform for the fashion industry
Recently, the company went a step further to become the comprehensive end-to-end platform for circular solutions for the fashion industry by incorporating new services such as recycling and the sale of innovative materials in its materials of the future category, which includes very high-quality fabrics from major brands such as SEPIIA, PYRATEX, and Persiskin. Recovo has also launched a new Upcycling service that allows the company to digitize surplus inventory for better internal use. Where design teams have absolute visibility of what is in the warehouse and can be reused. This service aims to encourage reuse by reducing the need to purchase new materials within large companies through gamification.
In this way, they seek to meet their goal of offering in a single platform all the circular solutions that help fashion brands and manufacturers reduce their environmental impact. In fact, the company has already managed to save up to 89,333Kg of CO2 and 18M liters of water with fabric sold.
In addition, Recovo has partnered with leading fashion brands and designers such as Deadwood and Alameda to create capsule collections with surplus and reused fabric available on the platform. These alliances are a clear example of how fashion brands can work together to promote a more circular and responsible fashion while creating unique pieces with less impact on the environment.
In a current framework with initiatives such as reuse, Recovo manages to create a positive impact by avoiding the processing of new virgin materials and transforming waste into a resource through connections and technology. For the startup and the brands that join it, it is key to be able to measure this impact. Therefore, the platform translates each connection into impact data that allows for a quantitative understanding of the initiative. By joining the Recovo family, brands join others who share their vision and commitment to circular fashion in order to inspire them to follow suit and take action to reduce their impact on the environment.