San Francisco startup Rubi just secured $7.5 million and $60 million in purchase commitments to scale carbon capture into fashion’s next major material. It’s not the first brand to try, but can it be the first to succeed?
A San Francisco materials startup just raised $7.5 million and locked in more than $60 million in purchase commitments from some of fashion’s biggest names — and it’s doing it without a single oil well or cotton field. Rubi, co-founded by twin sisters Neeka Mashouf and Dr. Leila Mashouf (whose family owns the retailer Bebe), converts captured carbon dioxide into cellulose, the raw polymer behind lyocell, rayon, and viscose. H&M Group, AP Ventures, FH One Investments, Talis Capital, and CMPC Ventures all participated in the latest round, with Walmart and Reformation among Rubi’s 15 confirmed fashion partners. The investment moment raises a question that extends well beyond one startup’s balance sheet: can carbon capture become a legitimate pillar of the fashion materials industry?
The answer is getting more concrete by the season.
Carbon capture fabrics
Rubi’s material approach is modeled on photosynthesis. Using enzymes enhanced by artificial intelligence and machine learning, its technology pulls CO2 from industrial waste streams and converts it into cellulose, which can then be processed into textile fibers using the same equipment already in use for conventional lyocell, rayon, and viscose production. Because the system is modular, it can be installed near carbon-producing facilities rather than requiring massive centralized factories — a design choice that cuts capital expenditure by up to tenfold compared to standard manufacturing infrastructure. The technology is also tunable, meaning the same platform can theoretically shift production between different materials based on market demand.
“We’ve now demonstrated this technology scales effectively and meets or exceeds customer product standards, driving an inflection point of commercialization. The fresh funding will accelerate our scaling and growth to meet strong global demand for modular and affordable manufacturing of essential materials from waste carbon across textile, [consumer packaged goods], aerospace, and chemicals verticals,” Rubi CEO Neeka Mashouf said in a statement. Carbon-capture platforms can serve aerospace, chemicals, and consumer goods alongside fashion, making it a significantly different commercial proposition than one narrowly focused on fabric, and it’s part of what drew investors including H&M Group to the table.
Fashion has already run the experiment
Carbon-capture clothing is not, in 2026, a hypothetical. In December 2021, Zara became the first major retailer to sell garments made from captured carbon, partnering with Illinois-based biotech company LanzaTech on a capsule collection of party dresses. LanzaTech’s CarbonSmart technology captured carbon emissions from Chinese steel mills and converted them to ethanol through a fermentation process not unlike brewing beer; that ethanol was further converted into monoethylene glycol and ultimately into polyester yarn, making up 20 percent of the finished fabric. It was the first time clothes produced from captured carbon were commercially available. “We are hugely excited about this collaboration with Inditex and Zara which brings fashion made from waste carbon emissions to the market,” LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren said in a statement at the time.
Working with Parisian label EgonLab and London-based design research studio Post Carbon Lab, DS Automobiles — the French luxury automotive brand — unveiled a four-piece unisex collection at Paris Fashion Week earlier that year built on an entirely different premise: rather than converting captured carbon into fabric, the pieces were coated in living algae, a photosynthetic layer that actively absorbs CO2 from surrounding air. “By absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the clothing line also underlines DS’s commitment to eco-conscious luxury that stands at the core of the electrified E-TENSE range,” the company said at the time. During that coating process, the bomber jackets, trench coat, and T-shirts collectively absorbed 1.45 kilograms of CO2 — roughly the equivalent of what a six-year-old oak tree sequesters over six months. Maintaining the algae required daily misting and regular sun exposure, a practicality gap that made the project as much a proof of concept as a product.
“The process aims to replicate what nature already does but on textiles,” founders Dian-Jen Lin and Hannes Hulstaert told Dezeen at the time.
“This is a living algae coating, consisting of layers of photosynthetic micro-organisms that can turn carbon dioxide into oxygen — the coating process as a whole took between seven and 10 weeks.”
H&M followed in April 2023 through its activewear line H&M Move, partnering again with LanzaTech on a CarbonSmart polyester capsule — a three-piece set of a jumpsuit, tights, and top. The implication of both collaborations was that industrial-scale carbon emissions could become a raw material, not simply a byproduct to manage. California-based Newlight Technologies has taken that logic further, building its entire fashion subsidiary, Covalent, around its AirCarbon biomaterial, derived from greenhouse gases consumed by marine microorganisms. Every kilogram of AirCarbon production results in 88 kilograms of CO2 equivalent removed from the atmosphere — a net-negative footprint independently verified by the Carbon Trust and SCS Global Services. Covalent applies that material to handbags, wallets, eyewear, and accessories. “We believe that consumers should have the ability to understand the environmental impact of their products on a specific, verified, and actionable basis,” Newlight CEO Mark Herrema said in a statement.
Paradise Textiles, the materials innovation arm of Egypt-based Alpine Group, has committed $102 million to a new integrated fabric manufacturing facility in Alexandria, incorporating energy-efficient machinery and a microfiber filtration system called Regen to reduce water use and microfiber pollution at the source. The facility is set to be operational by the third quarter of 2026, serving activewear and sportswear brands targeting U.S. and European markets and allowing designers to collaborate more closely on material performance and technical specifications. “This investment strengthens our ability to deliver greater speed, consistency and technical collaboration for our brand partners,” Ehab Mohi, chairman of Alex Apparels, told WWD. “We are improving lead times, enhancing quality control, and enabling performance-driven production for activewear and sportswear brands serving global markets.”
Thermore — the Milan-based premium insulation company established in 1972 — recently launched Ecodown Fibers T2T, a padding derived from 80 percent textile waste and 20 percent postconsumer PET bottles, a meaningful inversion of its previous product, which drew 80 percent from PET and only 20 percent from textile waste. “I have personally coordinated the Thermore research group for years, and the theme of circularity and textile-to-textile has long been the subject of study by our team,” Patrizio Siniscalchi, Managing Director of Thermore, said in a statement. “In fact, just as we pioneered the use of recycled fibers from PET bottles over 40 years ago, in recent years we have worked on the revaluation of textile waste. Ecodown Fibers T2T is already the second generation of padding we have produced using these important resources.”
Everlane, meanwhile, has launched a collection sourced from Masters of Flax Fiber certified linen, grown without irrigation or GMOs on cooperative farms in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, that reduces carbon emissions by 74 percent under the Product Environmental Footprint framework and offers full traceability from seed to garment. “We’ve worked with responsibly sourced linen for years because it shows what the future of materials can look like. When you can trace a fiber from the farm where it’s grown all the way to the finished garment, it creates a level of accountability that consumers are increasingly asking for,” Everlane chief executive officer Alfred Chang told WWD.
The real question surrounding carbon-capture textiles is whether the technology can move from limited-edition capsule to commercial supply chain staple — and at what cost. Both the Zara and H&M LanzaTech collaborations involved carbon-derived content comprising only 20 percent of the finished material. Achieving higher concentrations of carbon-derived input, at commercial volumes and without a green premium attached to the retail price, remains the central challenge for the category. The carbon-negative fabrics market was valued at roughly $400 million in 2025 and is projected to reach $1.7 billion by 2036, according to market research firm Fact.MR.
What distinguishes Rubi’s efforts now from earlier experiments is the intent to integrate directly into existing supply chains rather than to operate as a novelty layer on top of them. The company’s modular design addresses the cost barrier specifically, and Mashouf has said Rubi expects to reach price parity with conventional textiles at its first demonstration-scale plant — a threshold that would remove the most persistent obstacle to mainstream adoption. Mashouf has also been clear that fashion is just one piece of the platform’s scope. “This really is a platform,” she told TechCrunch. “We think of it as a platform to make all the important chemicals and materials across the economy in a low-cost way.”
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