Syntetica: EIC Accelerator Bet on Mixed Nylon Textile Recycling

Nylon in leggings, tights, swimwear and lingerie is often blended with other fibres, and blends are what most recycling methods cannot handle. The CORDIS summary of the INFINYLON project says less than 1% of post-consumer textile waste worldwide is recycled into new garments, because most recycling methods only work on near-pure waste. Syntetica, a French start-up registered in November 2023, says its chemical process can take mixed nylon textiles apart at low temperature and low pressure and rebuild the nylon at virgin quality.

The company appears in the EIC Accelerator winners list for the 6 May 2026 cut-off, for blended finance. CORDIS records a grant agreement signed on 23 September 2026 with an EU contribution of €2,499,999 for a project running from 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2028. The project had been running for a month when this article was written, so what follows is mostly what was promised, and what can already be checked.

Two nylons in one pot

Clothing nylon comes as two polymers, polyamide 6 and polyamide 66, which TechCrunch notes are hard to separate in consumer textile waste. According to the INFINYLON objective, Syntetica's process takes waste containing significant amounts of other fibres such as elastane, cotton and polyester, processes both polyamides together and recovers each one's monomers selectively. The monomers are then purified and polymerised again into nylon the company calls virgin-quality, for textiles and car parts. The mild conditions, the project says, leave elastane and cotton intact enough to be reused.

The single-step handling of both nylon types is the point the July 2026 funding reports stress. Tech.eu and TechCrunch both describe a patented process that removes the need to identify and separate the two nylons before recycling. In 2024 the company told Tech.eu that the method uses off-the-shelf chemicals at low temperature and without pressure. The PC'UP incubator of ESPCI Paris, which hosted the company, describes the same depolymerisation of nylon-rich waste into monomers, with elastane, cotton and polyester separated for further recycling.

Syntetica does not make yarn or fabric. TechCrunch reports that its product is pellets, which other manufacturers spin into yarn, and that CEO Marco Bertone says the company was built on the premise that there is no green premium: the recycled nylon has to compete on price. No production cost, yield, energy use or purity figure has been published by the company or in CORDIS.

The market figures in the press coverage do not quite agree. The Next Web reports recycled nylon at about 2% of the global market, citing Textile Exchange figures given by the company, while SiliconANGLE writes less than 2% and puts 2024 nylon production at about 7.7 million tonnes. NSS Magazine, citing the same body, says production neared 7 million tonnes. The project's own ambition is to recycle about 6.3% of global nylon production by 2035 and to produce 625,000 tonnes of recycled pellets a year, per CORDIS. Those are targets in a grant application, not figures the EIC has verified.

Money from brands, the French state and the EIC

The company's first round, in July 2024, was a €4.2 million seed led by EQT Ventures, with the family offices of Peugeot and Etam and Volta Circle, a family office that Tech.eu describes as a shareholder of Indorama Ventures. Recycling International reported the same amount and the backing of EQT Ventures, Peugeot and Volta Circle.

In July 2026 Syntetica announced a $30 million Series A. TechCrunch, Tech.eu and Dealroom name the lead as the Ecotechnologies 2 fund that Bpifrance manages for the French state under France 2030, with SWEN Capital Partners, lululemon, the apparel maker MAS Holdings and EQT Ventures taking part. The Next Web gives the round as €26.1 million.

The EIC's part in the round is described in different ways. TechCrunch and The Next Web write that the EIC supports Syntetica with equity and grants, and Pulse 2.0 lists the European Innovation Council among the Series A participants. Tech.eu only says the company has received support from public institutions including Bpifrance and the EIC. No EIC Fund investment amount or date has been published, and no Syntetica page could be found in the EIC Fund portfolio on 4 November 2026. The only EIC figure on the public record is the €2,499,999 grant in CORDIS.

From a Reims lab to a Michelin site

According to TechCrunch, the founders met through the Entrepreneur First programme at Station F and developed the process at an AgroParisTech laboratory in Reims. Its chief technology officer, Ash Ward, previously worked at Northvolt, and Northvolt co-founder Peter Carlsson advises the company, per the same report.

On 21 May 2026, Michelin announced that Syntetica would install a pilot at its Centre for Sustainable Materials in the Cataroux innovation park in Clermont-Ferrand. Michelin says the pilot will first recycle several tonnes of textiles, with a demonstrator project from 2027 and a gradual ramp-up to industrial volumes. The Series A coverage describes the next step as a first commercial demonstration plant at the same site: Tech.eu and SiliconANGLE give its capacity as hundreds of tonnes of textile waste a year, and The Next Web reports it should be running within 18 months.

The brand side is real but unquantified. Tech.eu, SiliconANGLE and NSS Magazine report that Victoria's Secret and Etam are working with the company, and The Next Web reports that lululemon worked with Syntetica for about two years before investing. TechCrunch says a recycling project with these partners could reach the market early next year. None of the reports gives a volume, a contract value or a product date that has been met.

1. Recycle PA6 and PA66 together from mixed textilesClaimedDescribed in CORDIS and by the company; no independent test or published yield.
2. Industrial pilotAnnouncedMichelin announced a pilot of several tonnes in Clermont-Ferrand in May 2026; no output published.
3. Commercial demonstration plantNot yet builtPlanned at hundreds of tonnes a year; Michelin dates the demonstrator from 2027.
4. Virgin-quality pellets sold to brandsToo earlyPartners named, no delivered volume reported.

Why the EU cares about nylon waste

The project places itself under the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles and extended producer responsibility schemes for textiles, and CORDIS tags all of its funding as climate action. Michelin's release points to EU rules requiring separate collection of textiles from 2025 and to increasing recycled-content requirements from 2027. The project says that a cost-effective route to circular polyamides would cut carbon emissions and reliance on fossil feedstocks. That case depends on the process working at a cost that competes with virgin nylon, which no public document yet shows.

Syntetica is not the only company trying. TechCrunch names enzymatic recycling start-ups and BASF, which has developed recycled nylon, as competitors. The French register records the company as active and puts its head office in Reims, not Paris as most of the funding coverage says, per the public company directory.

The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.