Syre

Syre is a textile recycling company founded in 2023 by Swedish investment firm Vargas and fashion and design company H&M Group. It aims to decarbonize and eliminate waste in the textile industry through hyperscale textile-to-textile recycling, initially focusing on polyester. Syre's solution delivers circular polyester with equivalent quality to virgin polyester but is significantly more sustainable, reducing CO2 emissions by up to 85% compared to oil-based virgin polyester. Syre's solution is positioned as a plug-and-play alternative to virgin polyester, compatible with existing textile manufacturing processes. It can accept textile blends with as low as 60% polyester content, though its commercial focus is on higher polyester compositions around 90%.

Syre's technology involves transforming post-consumer textile waste into recycled polyester fibers through a patented process developed by Premirr, a US-based company acquired by Syre. The company has established a research and development hub in North Carolina. 

Syre's first production plant in North Carolina is expected to be operational in 2024, with plans to rapidly scale up globally. Within 10 years, Syre aims to have twelve giga-scale plants running at full capacity worldwide, producing over 3 million metric tons of recycled polyester annually, capturing around 3% of the global polyester market. In May 2024, the company announced that it is evaluating locations in Iberia and Vietnam for its next two major recycling facilities to support its expansion across Europe and Asia.

Key customers and partnerships

In March 2024, H&M Group signed a USD 600 million offtake agreement with Syre to supply a significant portion of H&M’s long-term demand for recycled polyester over seven years. This agreement supports H&M Group's ambition to have 50% recycled materials by 2030, up from its previous target of 30% by 2025. In October 2024, the company partnered with with Selenis to build a textile recycling plant in North Carolina, which aims to produce 10,000 metric tons of circular polyester annually by mid-2025.

Funding and financials

In May 2023, the company raised USD 100 million in a venture funding round led by TPG Rise Climate to support construction of its blueprint plant in the US in 2024 and establish two giga-scale textile-to-textile recycling plants in Vietnam and Iberia.