Lectra to acquire majority stake in TextileGenesis

Paris-headquartered Lectra, will pay €15.2 million to acquire 51% of the capital and voting rights of the Dutch company TextileGenesis in January 2021. The remaining company will be purchased in two stages, in 2026 and 2028, for a sum based on multiples of 2025 and 2027 revenues.

Founded in 2018, TextileGenesis offers a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that enables fashion brands and sustainable textile producers to guarantee authenticity and origins by ensuring a reliable, safe, and fully digital mapping of their textiles – from the fiber to the customer.

Customers can now satisfy the demands for transparency brought on by increased consumer awareness and changes in legislation in a growing number of countries. The traceability mechanism and its technological platform ensure the interchange and tracking of trustworthy and secure data throughout the life cycle of a material. The mechanism serves both ends of the textile value chain and has a network of partners for material certification.

The TextileGenesis platform, which enables the linking of many parties to construct a sustainable fashion ecosystem, has already won over some of the top global fashion brands and sustainable fashion ecosystem.

Amit Gautam, founder of TextileGenesis, said that fashion is one of the most fragmented sectors because of its long and complex supply chain, which makes it opaque to brands, suppliers, subcontractors, and customers. Only 19% of actors in the fashion business today have visibility into their value chain, and even then, it is frequently only partial. Regarding supply chain transparency, many brands, especially those with high sustainability ambitions, encounter significant difficulties. They won’t be able to defend the sustainability of their products if they can’t trace the life cycle of certified materials.

Daniel Harari, chairman and CO of Lectra, said that having the greatest ethical standards, ensuring the wellbeing of our people, and safeguarding the environment dictate our everyday decisions. They seek to empower their customers to work in a more socially and environmentally responsible way through their technologies, acquisitions, and partnerships. They are excited to work with the great team at TextileGenesis to improve their understanding of the textile value chain in the fashion industry and to speed up the development of the company’s sustainable material traceability solution.