unspun, the industry leader in 3D weaving technology, has officially secured $32 million in what was an oversubscribed Series B funding round. Led by DCVC, the round saw further participation coming from the likes of Lowercarbon Capital, E12, Decathlon, and SOSV. According to certain reports, unspun plans on using the newly-raised funds to achieve rapid scaling of its innovative 3D weaving technology, Vega™, which is basically designed to help brands realize a low-inventory, nearshore and automated supply-chain for woven products that, on their part, represent 57% of the total apparel market. Talk about the stated technology on a slightly deeper level, it happens to be the world’s first 3D weaving technology for apparel. In essence, Vega takes thousands of yarns and weaves them into garments in minutes, allowing for (almost) zero-waste, on-demand manufacturing. By doing so, the technology unlocks scalable on-demand or low-inventory production. Now, to understand the significance of such a development, we must take into account how 3D has already proven itself when it comes to drastically shortening supply chains and lead times. This particular promise allows brands and manufacturers to plug these machines into existing supply chains for localized and automated production. With such a setup in place, one can further get traditional cut-make-trim facilities to vertically integrate operations, and do the same in a manner which is faster (4 times), cleaner (53% emissions reduction, 49% reduced energy demand and a 39% reduced blue water consumption), and more efficient (less than 3% cut waste, compared to the industry average of 15%).
“Overproduction has long been a taboo in fashion. It is now recognized by top-tier climate-funds as a key issue to urgently solve for the industry,” said Walden Lam, CEO of unspun. “We are overwhelmed with the enthusiasm, and excited to be partnering with DCVC, Lowercarbon SOSV climate, Decathlon and many commercial partners to urgently scale Vega™ to localize apparel manufacturing across North America and Europe.”
Making the technology’s prospects even brighter is the fact that unspun has signed multi-year agreements with multiple top retailers like Walmart to deploy its Vega™ machines for localized production in both North America and Europe. This indicates growing demand from major funds, brands, and retailers who are in need of more sustainable and efficient manufacturing solutions amid growing regulatory pressure and consumer demand for supply chain transparency and sustainability. With some places even considering a call to impose stringer production limits and waste bans, Vega steps in to accelerate the design-to-shelf process, thus empowering brands to keep up with the ultra-fast cadences set by fast-fashion disruptors, and at the same time, maintain, quality, profitability, and low waste. Another detail worth a mention here is rooted in how Vega will have circular supply chain applications, something which comes alongside unspun’s bid to develop garments that can then be turned back into yarns, and re-woven as new products.
unspun’s finding round also delivers a rather interesting follow-up to a separate project that unspun had formalized with Walmart. This project aims to localize parts of Walmart’s manufacturing and promote a higher level of supply chain traceability in North America. Interestingly, before that, unspun had further linked up with fashion label named Eckhaus Latta to introduce the first-ever 3D woven collection at New York Fashion Week. The collection in question is now accessible online through various retailers and acrossstores globally. In case that wasn’t enough, then we must also acknowledge the role unspun had played for the launch of designer Ana Kraš’ lifestyle brand, Teget.
“unspun offers a tremendous economic and logistical unlock for the fashion industry by eliminating costly overproduction and radically shortening the supply chain. We think it’s good business to align profits and climate impact and are excited to help unspun revolutionize the way clothing is made,” said Milo Werner, General Partner at DCVC, who will join unspun’s Board of Directors.
