Technology and fashion company Infinited Fiber has completed a two-part development financing round raising a total of €40 million (US$43.7 million) and, in the process, attracting significant support from a pair of new investors directly connected to major fast-fashion retailers that have been previously accused of greenwashing.

The new investors include Spain’s Inditex Group, the parent company of Zara and other fashion brands, and TTY Management, the family office of Tadashi Yanai, who is chairman, president and CEO of Fast Retailing, the parent of the ubiquitous fashion retail chain Uniqlo. Yanai is Japan’s richest person, according to the Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires list, with an estimated net worth of over US$43 billion.

Infinited Fiber is a Finnish technology and fashion company with a patented technology that turns cotton-rich textile waste, such as worn-out t-shirts, jeans and production scraps, into Infinna, which the company describes as “a virgin-quality, versatile textile fibre with the soft and natural look and feel of cotton”.

Infinna is biodegradable and contains no microplastics. Garments made with the textile, at the end of their life, can be recycled in the same process, together with other textile waste, enabling circularity in fashion and garment manufacturing.

In the past, H&M, Zara and Uniqlo have been called out as being greenwashing fashion companies, but all three are now adopting sustainable practices across their operations. Following the latest funding round, Inditex, TTY Management and H&M Group are now the largest shareholders of Infinited Fiber.

“It is fantastic to have these impactful companies onboard as our new investors,” says Petri Alava, Infinited Fiber’s co-founder and CEO. “This investment is crucial for further advancing the scale-up of Infinna, and it underscores the industry’s confidence in our technology as one of the key enablers for circularity in the textile sector.”