However, the global nature of the chip shortage has strained carmakers as they compete directly with tech firms for supply. “The quality is incredibly important to the consumer.The automotive industry is used to running lean “just-in-time” supply chains that minimise the amount of cash tied up in factory warehouses. “The look and feel is incredibly important to the brands that we are trying to reach, and this is really critical when we think about consumer luxury goods and footwear,” added Winer. That durability will help it overcome any resistance in the fashion market. “We have demonstrated in complex global supply chains and global markets that we can compete effectively on price, performance and sustainability.” Many other next-gen materials are struggling to hit anywhere near a price point that makes it accessible to the general public,” said Kennedy. “In order for a solution to scale or material to scale, it cannot be a performance compromise to the consumer, and it needs to be at a price point that enables scale as well. It also comes down to fashion - the look and feel of a handbag or shoe has to be commercially viable. Kennedy said the company’s experience making unglamorous but well-used bus and plane seats demonstrates the material’s durability and can transfer to consumer leather goods. Their first, smaller factory is now devoted to research and development of new materials. ELeather opened a factory outside of London in 2021 that has the capacity to make 70 million square feet of new material a year. Kennedy and Winer emphasize that the tech is quickly scalable. With Tapestry as a strategic investor there’s potential to work with other brands under their umbrella. Gen Phoenix’s growth targets are “aligned with their public commitments,” he added, and the company will work as partners with the brands throughout the journey. We’re all about driving scale, because that is how we’re going to help these brands improve their impact,” he said. “We’re not really about making a big media splash around one handbag. These are long-term commitments to change brands’ supply chains, Kennedy emphasized. The funding round will help build out these recycling pipelines and help the brands deliver on their sustainability targets. Martens and Tapestry’s Coach are both “very strong leather brands, so this technology and solution are of great interest to them.” “Our philosophy is there’s a huge amount of excess materials and stuff that’s in the world today, and our thesis is we should be repurposing and reusing that stuff rather than building and creating new things,” said Kennedy.Įxpanding into the postconsumer market, the company will start with end-of-life-cycle brand take-back programs, “particularly with these types of partners we are invested with,” said Kennedy. “It’s process innovation that isn’t reliant on any one ingredient, and solves for the waste challenge in a way that no other brand that we see on the market can do effectively,” said Elyse Winer, partner at Material Impact. Gen Phoenix has new materials from plant-based sources as well as other postindustrial or postconsumer waste in the pipeline. We’ve got fantastic credentials and fantastic credibility based on our transportation markets, and that leverages very well and plays into the consumer space,” said chief executive officer John Kennedy.

“Our intent is to leverage the scale that we have today and the scale we have demonstrated over the last 15 years in other markets. The company has recovered 8,000 tons of leather waste before landfill and provides engineered leather seat covers to more than 200 airlines. The ELeather brand, which is well established in the mass transportation category, will live on under the new corporate moniker and continue to service that sector.įounded in 2007 as ELeather, the U.K.-based company diverts leather offcuts destined for landfill, breaks them down into fibers using pressurized water and transforms that feedstock into a new engineered leather material for seating, and now shoes and handbags, among other potential uses.

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