PARIS — French lab-grown leather company Faircraft has closed a 15-million-euro series A funding round, and the company unveiled its first handbag made with the material.
“Lab-grown leather represents a major evolution that goes far beyond the fashion industry, and uses cutting-edge technologies to honor ethical considerations. It enables the creation of unique pieces with minimal environmental impact, while offering new possibilities to leather artisans and designers,” said Faircraft cofounder and chief executive officer Haïkel Balti.
More from WWD
The round was backed by San Francisco-based Kindred Ventures, which traditionally works with early-stage tech start-ups such as Poshmark and Postmates, and French sovereign investment fund BPIFrance. They were joined by venture capital firms Alliance for Impact, Blue Wire Capital, Cap Horn, Entrepreneur First, Heirloom as well as Dutch investor and Prime Ventures founder Sake Bosch.
Faircraft was cofounded by Balti and César Valencia Gallardo in 2021. The company’s 20-member team has so far been focused on engineering. With this raise, the company will expand key scientific hires, develop machinery to scale up production as well as create product development teams dedicated to brand relations.
The first handbag unveiled was tanned using traditional methods and made by leather goods artisans based in Paris.
“It’s a great milestone for us,” said Balti. “To be able to go from end-to-end, from lab-growing the skin, through the full tanning process in traditional drums, to having the product being used to put out an actual [handbag] — we’re pretty happy about the results.”
Faircraft is working with Paris-based luxury fashion and leather goods brands on further product experimentation.
The lab-grown leather uses a cellular growing process adapted from pharma research, with seed cells originally derived from animals. The result mimics traditional leather in terms of look, texture and smell, and can be tanned using traditional processes.
“We’re placed in a unique position where we have these new materials, but which are also meeting some criteria in terms of touch and feel, performance and storytelling,” he said. “These companies love the story because it’s a highly innovative product that relies on a lot of science — we have patented completely new processes — while at the same time it’s also traditional.”