Xefco, the sustainable manufacturing tech company, today announced it has raised AUD$10.5 million in its latest funding round led by Australian deep tech fund Main Sequence, to reduce textile emissions and create a greener supply chain for the fashion industry.
The investment from other new backers, Breakthrough Victoria, and Virescent Ventures, investing on behalf of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and existing shareholders, Investible and V
The textile industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters with textile finishing and dyeing responsible for a fifth of global industrial water pollution and 3% of global carbon emissions. It’s also the second largest industrial user of water after agriculture.
“The existing wet processes used to put colour and other functional properties on fabrics have the biggest environmental footprint of the entire fashion supply chain. These outdated, resource-intensive operations have not changed in centuries. It’s destroying our waterways and our planet. We’re determined to create a greener supply chain for the fashion industry,” said Tom Hussey, CEO and Founder of Xefco.
Co-founded in 2018 by Tom Hussey and Brian Conolly, Xefco has spent the past six years advancing innovative textile solutions. Its first product XReflex, which increases the thermal efficiency of insulated clothing, is already used by some of the world’s leading apparel and fashion brands including Zara and The North Face.
With its latest innovation, Ausora, Xefco has discovered a way of dyeing and finishing textiles without water. Using its unique shower plasma process, Ausora produces the same look, feel and performance properties without the environmental footprint.
Ausora’s process can be used on any textiles including natural and synthetic materials. Xefco already has a number of pilot projects underway with some of the largest sportswear, outdoor, and fashion brands using its Ausora system to color and finish apparel.
“Our Ausora systems have been designed to plug and play into existing supply chains to help brands and manufacturers easily transition to a cleaner textile process. Dyeing and finishing drive the biggest impacts in the textile supply chain. Whereas, compared to conventional wet dyeing and finishing, our process eliminates the use of water and cuts energy, chemical consumption and cost. Our technology has the potential to stop millions of tonnes of waste entering our waterways and CO2 from entering our planet,” added Hussey.
Based at Deakin University’s ManuFutures hub at the Waurn Ponds campus, Xefco’s impactful technology has been recognized by grants including up to $4 million from Deakin’s Recycling and Clean Energy Commercialisation Hub, supported by the Australian Government’s inaugural Trailblazer Universities Program. This builds on funding Xefco received as a key partner in the ARC Research Hub for Future Fibres at Deakin’s co-located Institute for Frontier Materials and previously from the Innovative Manufacturing CRC (IMCRC). Xefco also took part in Cicada Innovation’s Tech23 event last year.
Commenting on its investment into the company, Jun Qu, Investment Manager at Main Sequence added, “Xefco addresses an often-overlooked element of the fashion supply chain, one that is critical to global climate repair. There’s no sustainable future without sustainable fashion and we see immense potential for Xefco to accelerate the decarbonization of the global textile industry.”
With its latest capital injection, Xefco plans to nearly double its headcount in 2024 and scale its manufacturing process.
