ALT TEX becomes first Canadian company to win H&M Foundation's Global Change Award

The Velocity company is making fabric out of food waste

Chosen from thousands of global applicants, ALT TEX has received H&M Foundation's Global Change Award, marking the first time a Canadian company receives the award.

"We’ve developed a product that not only has clear technical and environmental merit but has the ability to plug into the polyester manufacturing supply chain, giving us the ability to rapidly hit the market and scale," Avneet Ghotra, Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer, said. "Taking technology out of the lab is always a challenge, especially as a young Canadian startup. The credibility of the Global Change Award network significantly increases our chance for success.”

As part of the award, ALT TEX received 200,000 Euros and will work with the foundation over the next year to build its commercialization strategy in Europe, China, Hong Kong, the U.S. and Canada.

ALT TEX makes biodegradable textile out of food waste that is positioned to reduce the textile industry's dependence on petroleum-based polyester, currently found in 60% of all clothes.

“By leveraging two of the world’s largest and most polluting industries, food and fashion, against each other, we’re not only multiplying total impact of this technology, but are connecting global value chains for truly systemic change," Myra Arshad, co-founder and CEO, said. "This is exactly what the Global Change Award represents. With the support of the H&M Foundation, we can build out that global network faster”

ALT TEX joined Velocity in 2021 and has since created their first fabric prototype and raised $4.5 million in funding.

"We ended up going through many incubators and accelerators but one key thing that was missing was that none of those were good at deep tech, we were missing the key pieces around how to take all this business advice and couple it with technical advice and get the product going," Myra Arshad, CEO, said. "When we learned about Velocity and came to visit, it was game changing — we knew this is where we needed to be."