Ravel Raises $8.2M for Blended Textile Recycling

Ravel has closed an oversubscribed $8.2 million seed round to move its blended-textile recycling technology toward commercial operations. The Seattle company’s Purification Recycling™ process is designed to separate mixed fibers such as polyester and elastane into high-purity single-material fiber. One Small Planet led the round, with participation from AP Ventures, Overlay Capital, Lichen Ventures, existing investor At One Ventures, Collateral Good, Betterway Ventures, and others. Ravel is seeking industry partners as it expands from its Seattle pilot plant and tests its materials across textile supply chains.

Funding Supports Commercial Scale

Ravel plans to use the new capital to advance commercial readiness for its process, which accepts blended textile waste rather than requiring recyclers to sort materials into pure streams first. The company positions its recycled output as a drop-in material for existing manufacturers and says it is designed to avoid unnecessary green premiums or reliance on subsidies to cover costs.

The technology targets blends used in performance clothing, including polyester and elastane, using what Ravel describes as non-destructive, low-energy processing. Its aim is to turn those mixed waste materials into mono-material fiber for reuse.

“There are countless advantages to blended fiber materials for clothing, blends are what make clothing durable, functional, and affordable. But blends are not recyclable with existing infrastructure. That's where Ravel comes in. We're solving a huge problem that other technologies fail to address.”

A Focus on Feedstock

Textile blends are widespread in clothing production, and Ravel’s process is intended to handle waste streams that are difficult to separate before recycling. The company says this flexibility can reduce the logistical challenge and cost of collecting pure textile waste streams.

“Ravel offers a rare opportunity in recycling: a clear pathway to producing recycled materials that are cheaper than their virgin counterparts. The logic is elegant on a first-principles basis, positioning Ravel to solve one of the most pressing problems in the circular economy. The company's technology transforms complex material blends into virgin-quality feedstock, creating a transparent, low-carbon, cost-effective supply chain, and opening the door for more global industries to adopt circular models.”

Testing With Industry Partners

Ravel is working to validate blended textile waste as a feedstock and integrate its recycled materials into manufacturing supply chains. The company is looking for partners as brands and manufacturers face increased responsibility for textile waste under Extended Producer Responsibility legislation.

“The biggest driver of success for any recycling business is feedstock. How much of the waste stream that is being utilized is actually usable? How pure does it need to be for the processing to work viably? How far does it need to be transported? Those factors determine unit economics, operational complexity, and ultimately scalability. What impressed us about Ravel is that the team recognized this early and designed their technology specifically around scalability and the feedstock challenge. The result is a solution with broad feedstock flexibility while still producing the high-purity output materials at low cost. In our view, this is the combination of characteristics to enable mass adoption.”

Recycling Blends for Reuse

For textile manufacturers and brands, Ravel’s proposition is a recycling route for blended materials that can fit existing production systems. The seed funding gives the company resources to prove that approach at production scale while building partnerships for commercial deployment.