German startup eeden has successfully raised €18 million in a Series A funding round to expand its innovative textile recycling technology. The company has developed a process to recover pure cellulose and PET monomers from cotton-polyester blended fabrics, a step forward in producing high-quality lyocell, viscose, and polyester from textile waste.

With this funding, eeden plans to build a demonstration plant in Münster, improve large-scale processing, and begin commercial projects with major players in the textile sector.

“Over the past few years, we’ve built a working solution that can meet the industry’s growing need for affordable, high-performance circular materials,” said Steffen Gerlach, CEO and co-founder of eeden. “We’re grateful to both our new and existing investors for their trust in our vision. With their support, we’re ready to scale up and give textile waste a new life.”

The funding round was led by Forbion, a Netherlands-based venture capital firm, through its BioEconomy Fund. New investors include Henkel Ventures and NRW.Venture, the investment arm of North Rhine-Westphalia’s development bank. All of eeden’s current investors also took part in the round.

“Eeden has developed a groundbreaking approach that could make large-scale textile recycling both technically possible and financially practical,” said Alex Hoffmann, general partner at Forbion. “We believe in their potential and are excited to help bring their technology to market at scale.”