The Renewal Workshop raises $5.5m in funding round, expands into Europe

By

Gabriella Lacombe

Published
Dec 12, 2019

The Renewal Workshop, a company that provides circular solutions for apparel and textile brands, has raised $5.5 million in a Series A financing round. 

The Cascade Locks, Oregon-based company helps brands by managing the collection, renewal, and quality of a brand's damaged or used garments, and by overseeing the back-end of the brand's own ‘recommerce’ site for renewing products. 

The company also provides brand partners with impact data on the amount of water, carbon, and chemicals that are saved through their partnership. According to the company, it has saved over two hundred thousand pounds of apparel with its system to date.

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On top of boosting the green image of its brand partners, The Renewal Workshop also helps brands prevent their products from being resold on third-party sites and allows them to operate their own branded second-sale channel.

The company further announced the expansion of its business into Europe. Recently, the company opened a European renewal facility in Amsterdam, which will offer The Renewal Workshop’s entire suite of services to European apparel brands.

According to company co-founders, Nicole Bassett and Jeff Denby, who built their first renewal facility in 2016, the expansion came as a result of high demand for their service in Europe. 

"Over the past three years, The Renewal Workshop has helped some of the biggest brands in apparel launch renewed collections," Bassett said.

"We exist to serve brands as they transition to fully circular, zero-waste businesses, and our partnership with our existing and new values-aligned impact investors is perfectly timed to scale our operations for that mission," she added.

"Production is already underway at our Amsterdam facility, and we are thrilled to serve a strong pipeline of European brands eager to transition to circular business models," said Denby, who will lead European operations and be based in Amsterdam. 

Tamara Zwart, former European director of Fashion+ for the Cradle-to-Cradle Institute, will serve as the company’s operations lead for Europe. 

Currently, some of the company’s U.S. brand partners include The North Face, Mara Hoffman, Prana and Coyuchi.

The financing round was led by European venture capital and impact investors Social Impact Ventures, Shift Invest, and Quadia, with additional participation from existing U.S. investors Closed Loop Ventures, Gratitude Railroad, Portland Seed Fund, and High Meadows Investment Group.