Recently, GALY, an American biotech company focused on cellular agriculture, announced the completion of a $33 million Series B financing round. The round was led by Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and other investors included well-known fashion groups H&M and Inditex. The funding is said to advance the company's cellular agriculture platform and its flagship product, “GALY Cotton,” a lab-grown cotton.Founded in 2019, GALY is dedicated to the production of natural products through cellular agriculture, in which the company extracts, cultivates, and genetically engineers cotton cells into cotton fiber. GALY Cotton is a laboratory-grown cotton.
Publicly available information shows that cotton farming is a huge resource consumer, occupying 2.5 per cent of the world's arable land, 22 per cent of global agrochemical use and emitting 220 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. Under the increasingly severe climate problems, the company's green, efficient and more stable production method is favored by the capital, since its inception, the company raised a total of more than 65 million U.S. dollars. In addition to Bill Gates, OpenAl founder and CEO Sam Altman, the father of the iPod Tony Fadell also invested in the company, the company impressed a number of Silicon Valley bigwigs and venture capital institutions.
Currently, the company has multi-million dollar proof-of-concept agreements with industry leaders and a 10-year, $50 million off-take agreement with the Suzuran Group of Japan. And different from the previous, this round of financing added more industry background, two major clothing group hand in hand into the game. Founded in 1947, H&M is the world's second largest clothing brand, at its peak, it has more than 5,000 stores around the world, 2023 sales of 236 billion Swedish kronor (about 163.2 billion yuan). Inditex from Spain, on the other hand, is the world's largest fashion group, with eight major clothing brands such as ZARA, PUIand Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, etc., and revenues of 35.947 billion euros (about 283.1 billion yuan) in fiscal year 2023. Behind the reason why they chose to bet on this cell-culture cotton company is the fashion giants' focus on sustainable materials.
In addition to GALY, more and more bio-based fiber startups are gaining capital:
1. Lululemon invests in sustainable materials producer Genomatica, collaborating on the first T-shirt made from plant-based nylon;
2. Nike launched a new collection, Nike Forward, made up of 70% recycled content that also reduces carbon emissions by 75%;
3. ZARA launched a capsule collection made from Circulose material, made from 100% textile waste and biodegradable;
4. Pangaia launched a plant-based sportswear line, Activewear 3.0 products made with 99.99% plant-based EVO® nylon and 30% plant-based creora® spandex fibers;
5. The North Face introduces jackets made from Protein ™️ fibers brewed with structured protein materials;
6. Arc'teryx introduces its first self-researching line of mountain hiking shoes, which features a sock liner made from a 50% bio-based PU compound and an open-cell foam top layer containing 25% bio-based content;
7. Saucony launched an eco-friendly running shoe, the TRIUMPH RFG, which features a natural plant-dyed cotton upper, a midsole made from 55% corn-based raw materials and an outsole made from 80% natural rubber.
