Renaissance Fiber
Name: Daniel Yohannes
Address: 500 W. Fifth St, Suite 400, Winston-Salem, NC 27101
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 860-857-5987
Team
Daniel Yohannes, CEO and Co-Founder
Andrew Hume, Chief Sustainability Officer
Michael Long, Founder
Bruce Maxwell, Chief Financial Officer
Billy Cooper, VP Operations
John Riddle, SVP Sales
Will Joyner, Kilpatrick Townsend, General Counsel
Key Advisors/Board Members
Lee Woodard (ret. HANESBRANDS, Global Logistics)
Dhruv Aggarwal (KONTOOR BRANDS, Fiber Innov.)
Tom McCall (ret., CAP YARNS, Yarn Innov.)
Len Furlough (ret. NAT. SPINNING, Yarn Innov.)
Angela Wartes-Kahl (ORGANIC CERTIFICATION)
Melissa Henkle (UNIFI, Brand Management)
David McAlister (ret. USTER, Fiber Data Analysis)
Industry
Textiles
Apparel
Manufacturing (Automotive, Home Goods, etc)
Defense Department
Year Founded
2022
Number of Employees
FT: 2
PT: 4
Current Investors
Friends/Family ($173K)
Pre-Seed Investors ($150K)
Monthly Burn Rate
~$4,000/month
Financing Sought
$0.5M Seed Financing
Use of Funds
Working Capital-$314,000
Cap Ex-$172,000
Cash Reserves-$14,000
Operations-$0
Business Description
Company Background
Problem/Solution
Consumers and brands struggle to find practical ways to reduce their environmental impact and contribute to halting climate change. The textiles industry has a sustainability problem: it is ranked as the second biggest polluter on the planet and the second highest contributor to climate change. Cotton is water and pesticide intensive; polyester is not readily degradable and greatly contributes to micro-plastics pollution (on land and water), and rayon, nylon and other synthetics are highly energy intensive and pollutive to the atmosphere. The textiles industry accounts for approximately 10% of global carbon emissions.
Currently, consumers have very few options for buying sustainable textiles, and manufacturers who look to hemp as an eco-friendly alternative fiber purchase their hemp from foreign suppliers because there is no domestic supply chain. Renaissance Fiber addresses these challenges by offering the first domestic hemp supply chain and one with outstanding sustainability credentials.
Products
Our hemp fiber offers clean (Ecologically Invisible™️), cost-effective, carbon-negative yarn-ready fiber for textile brands seeking to offer sustainable products to eco-conscious consumers. It is offered for sale in loose fiber bales, sliver, and yarn.
Technologies
Our proprietary hemp degumming technology softens raw hemp fiber. We also have trade-secret know-how regarding post-processing preparation of hemp fiber for yarn applications.
Target Market/Customers
- Yarn Spinners (B2B): to replace
- Cotton
- Synthetics (Polyester, Rayon, Nylon, etc.)
- Apparel Brands (Pull-thru): targeting those focused on
- Sustainability
- Hemp
- Cost
Notable Traction
Pilot yarn customers to date include Parkdale Mills, Shuford Yarns, Rockford Mfg., Giotex. Brands include Patagonia, Carhartt, Hanesbrands. Also recipient of two DoD subcontracting awards supplying hemp fiber for military applications.
Competition
Domestic competitors matter more than foreign, because supply chain proximity limits cost, and the domestic market is our primary market. Competitors include:
- Domestic: Bastcore, 9Fiber, Bear Fiber, Panda Biotech
- Foreign: Bast Fibre Tech, Seff Fibre, Eko-Terre
Our competitive advantages include our proprietary degumming technology (clean, and cost-effective), our carbon-negative fiber, and our ability to provide a uniquely sustainable hemp textile fiber supply chain. Additionally, unlike our competitors, Renaissance Fiber is in the Southeastern textile corridor, close to most of our customers. By being first to market with a domestic supply chain, we believe we can ultimately scale to become the low-cost provider in this industry.
Business Model/Distribution
We are a B2B company, selling yarn-ready fiber into yarn spinners and apparel brand supply chains. To date, we have operated on a pilot project basis using a toll-manufacturing model for all processing operations. We are now raising a Seed round to create a Minimum Viable Mill (MVM). The MVM is the first step in bringing manufacturing in-house to reduce the cost of finished product. It also creates the basis for continuous revenue operations, enabling us to convert our existing pilots into long-term customers. Our distribution model involves a push strategy with yarn spinners and a pull-through strategy with apparel brands.