Ambercycle Inc., which is gaining notice from some of the world’s most influential fashion retailers, announced an investment from Goldwin Play Earth Fund, a limited partner of Goldwin Inc., which is a Tokyo-based retailer which designs uniforms for the Japanese national ski and snowboard teams.
Shay Sethi, co-founder and chief executive of the West Adams synthetic textile producer, didn’t disclose the amount that Goldwin invested in his company on July 29.
However, he confirmed that Goldwin will be taking an unspecified equity stake in the company. And the partnership will extend beyond investment, he said.
“(Goldwin is) both an investor and a significant customer, particularly in the Japanese market,” Sethi said.
Ambercycle’s signature fabric, known as cycora, will debut in Goldwin’s capsule collection of sportswear and technical apparel this upcoming fall. Both companies are focused on developing products for the “circular economy” where materials are reused instead of being dumped in a landfill.
“We share a strong values alignment with the Goldwin Group,” Sethi said. “Our relationship extends beyond the products we’re creating today to a shared long-term vision of where circularity plays a central role. It’s an important partnership for the future because our values are so deeply aligned.”
The deal for Ambercycle, which has raised up to $44 million to date, is among the latest highlighting its growing association with some marquee names in fashion. A venture group owned by H&M led a $21.6 million investment in 2017; and Inditex, the parent company of Zara, made a $81 million deal in 2024 and has a three-year contract to use cycora fabric, which has the same quality as premium virgin polyester, Sethi said.
The development of this fabric is part of Ambercycle’s mission to divert textile waste from over-taxed landfills. The fabric has received an enthusiastic response by some environmentalists and watchers of the eco-business field. Time Magazine listed cycora as one of the best inventions of 2024.
“Some 92 million tons of textiles end up in landfills every year, and the polyester in them leaches into our land and groundwater,” wrote Time reporter Chris Stokel-Walker. “The cycora process tackles that problem by liquefying and separating clothing items’ polyester-rich textile waste and recycling it.”
The challenges of cycora
Ambercycle’s Sethi and co-founder Moby Ahmed carved a niche into the circular economy by developing a process – aimed at minimizing waste and maximizing resources – in fabrics when they were chemical engineering students at UC Davis in the 2010s.
Ambercycle has been dubbed by a small handful of investors and industry consultants as likely being California’s only company producing polyester through a chemical process. Other manufacturers around the world reconstitute polyester fabrics by grinding down the materials with shredding machines, then repurposing the fabric into polyester yarns.
Despite the accolades and endorsements, a major challenge faces Ambercycle, Sethi said.
“The biggest thing is getting brands and people interested in using circular materials,” Sethi said of products made from reusing materials.
Sethi and Ahmed are pushing to expand the use of cycora by partnering with several different companies, including Asian yarn manufacturers such as Far Eastern Group, based in Taiwan.
Ambercycle also made deals to supply cycora to popular fashion brands like Canadian snow and performance brand Arc’Teryx, which will launch in 2026. Vernon-based brand Reformation announced in 2024 that it will feature the fabrics in its clothing. Kathleeen Talbot, chief sustainability officer and vice president of operations at Reformation, said Ambercycle has been key to reaching the brand’s environmental goals.
“At Reformation, we’ve set an ambitious commitment to become circular by 2030,” Talbot said in a statement. “To us, that means using as little virgin material as possible, creating as little waste as possible, and keeping what’s in the fashion system in use for as long as possible. Through cycora, Ambercycle is helping brands like Ref bring closed-loop garments to the market.”
Public acceptance
The road to widespread public acceptance will probably be paved with the consumer desire for inexpensive products, as cycora is currently more expensive than virgin polyester, Sethi said.
“It’s a crucial long-term goal,” he said of bringing prices down. “Because when the price aligns, adoption cannot scale without asking people to compromise on either quality or sustainability.”
Sethi declined to disclose the price differentiation between his company’s fabric and virgin polyester.
Chinese sustainable fabrics producer Regenfabric said that recycled textile materials are often 1.2 to 3 times pricier than new fibers.
Dan Fishman, co-founder and general partner at Regeneration VC, a Beverly Hills-based venture capital firm specializing in circular economy investments, emphasized that price is a critical factor.
“Fashion companies exist to succeed, generate profits and meet customer expectations,” Fishman said. “If Ambercycle can introduce something innovative and exciting at price parity, it will open the door to real competition with established players.”
Regeneration VC, launched in 2022, does not serve as an investor in Ambercycle.
The price of cycora might come down if there’s more on the market. It’s one goal of scaling the company’s production.
Expansion plans
Ambercycle currently runs a 5,500-square-foot plant that serves as pilot program for future facilities, which are estimated to have the capacity to turn 250,000 T-shirts into cycora fabric on a daily basis.
Sethi is also looking to open these factories in different places around the world. The key is to locate the plants in areas where there is a lot of textile waste to be harvested from manufacturers, as well as secondhand stores with excess stock and consumers who want to recycle old clothes.
Fashion companies developing a circular economy could get a boost the state of California.
Last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law SB 707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024. It’s the first apparel and recovery law on the books in the U.S., according to the law firm DLA Piper. It says apparel and textile producers, brand owners or licensers of a covered product will be responsible for managing the end-of-life for products they make, as a way to cut down on pollution in landfills.
SB 707 states that producer of items sold in California must join a product responsibility organization by July 2026 and start participating in it with a deadline for 2030. The product responsibility organization will give guidelines on collection and repairing items.
Public sector focus on circular economy should boost job creation and economic opportunities for companies working in this field, said Glynn Barrish Caroll, a Redondo Beach-based sustainability and operations consultant. She forecasts more eco-friendly fabrics will be produced, which aid fashion designers who seek to work in eco-friendly fashion.
“Designers need to have more access to domestic textile waste that has become recycled fabrics,” she said. “It’s hard to find sampling and small production runs in stock.”
Sethi hopes his company’s expansion will compel people to recycle.
“A metric of success is when someone will pull a garment out of a closet and say, ‘I can Ambercycle this,’” he said.
