Female-founded startup, Alt. Leather has secured a $1.1 million investment from an influential group of investors in a successful seed round.
The Melbourne plant-based leather business has received the backing from Startmate, The Austin Group, Robyn Denholm’s family office Wollemi Capital Group, and LaunchVic’s Alice Anderson Fund along with strategic angel investors.
‘It’s exciting to see the appetite for climate-tech from Australian investors – the impact of climate change is the most pressing issue of our time, and our world-class tech provides a commercial opportunity for investors wanting to make a positive environmental impact,” Alt. Leather’s founder, Tina Funder tells Women’s Agenda.
Alt. Leather is Australia’s first 100 per cent bio based leather alternative that turns waste and regenerative plants into textiles for use across fashion, footwear, furniture, automotive interiors, etc.
Identifying a gap in the market, Funder first launched a vegan handbag label LOM Australia in 2022 using cactus and apple leather. Now, she’s working to step into the carbon-instensive and petroleum based synthetic leather market with Alt. Leather.
“I tested many of the bio based alternatives on the market and coudn’t find a suitable material that was petrochemical-free,” says Funder. “Given the current climate, it felt like a significant commercial opportunity with the benefit of a positive environmental outcome.”
Chief Scientific Officer of Alt. Leather, Dr. Tuan Nguyen said Alt. Leather’s use of globally abundant regenerative plant derivatives as well as waste streams makes it a reliable and sustainable material.
“By adopting green chemistry innovation, we have developed patentable material composition technology to produce a leather alternative that is both durable and commercially stable,” said Dr. Nguyen.
During 2023, Alt. Leather’s research team grew from one to four, and made progress on achieving a base material that looks and feels like leather. The team is aiming to become the default choice to traditional leather and eliminate the need for petroleum-based synthetic leathers.
Exceeding their initial target of $750,000, Alt. Leather secured the upper limit investment of $1.1 million at the seed round running from October until around Christmas last year, with intense interest from investors.
Alt. Leather will use the funds to file its provisional patent, kick off small-scale sample production with a range of Australian brands and gain access to university-housed advanced equipment and student researchers.
The fashion industry accounts for about 8-10 per cent of global carbon emissions, and nearly 20 per cent wastewater. One of the biggest material culprits towards environmental destruction is leather.
According to the Material Innovation Initiative, the global synthetic leather wholesale market is estimated at around US$70 billion with 3 per cent of that attributed to next-gen alternatives, and almost the entire industry still relying on petroleum-based plastics in production.
“That’s millions of tonnes of fossil-fuel derived plastic that we can eliminate from the world, the impact we can have is enormous,” says Funder.
Among the Alt. Leather’s seed round investors, Wollemi Capital Group CEO, Victoria Denholm says creative entrepreneurs like Funder help us “reimagine a world where we can enjoy beautifully crafted goods in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.”