Hugo boss has accepted HeiQ AeoniQ yarn with a $5 million equity investment and an additional contingent of $4 million in HeiQ AeoniQ.
Lycra Company has become an exclusive distributor of yarn with a significant investment, promising to develop technology for widespread application in textiles.
This strategic partnership will help Hugo Boss meet its ambitious sustainable goals, as well as the goal of climate neutrality across the entire value chain from 2030 to 2045.
That investment fits perfectly with Hugo Boss’s goal of increasing the proportion of more sustainable materials in the coming years.
In the long run, Hugo Boss has focused on the possibility of physically supplementing and replacing the currently used polyester and nylon fibers with cellulosic HeiQ AeoniQ fibers.
Daniel Grieder, CEO of Hugo Boss said, “Our exciting partnership with HeiQ on HeiQ AeoniQ represents yet another important milestone on our journey towards becoming the leading premium tech-driven fashion platform worldwide.
Consistent with their bold mission statement ‘We Love Fashion, We Change Fashion’, this game-changing collaboration with HeiQ enables them to further push innovation and sustainability across our brands’ offerings, thereby driving measurable impact for the environment and society alike, he added.
According to Hugo Boss, The Lycra Company agreed to be the exclusive distributor for HeiQ AeoniQ yarn through payment of a milestone-driven technology fee and a commitment to leveraging its deep textiles knowledge and market channel access to prepare this new technology for broad use in apparel applications.
On the other hand, HeiQ AeoniQ is a continuous cellulosic filament yarn with the potential to compete with polyester and nylon fibers constitutes a revolutionary, first-to-market, and scalable proprietary apparel technology.
That will allow the manufacturing of a sustainable, cellulosic yarn designed for circularity and closed-loop recycling that could ultimately substitute oil-based fibers.
Julien Born, CEO at The Lycra Company said, “Sustainability continues to be a core tenet of The Lycra Company’s strategy as we are focused on providing value-added technologies to help our customers create and develop exceptional fabric and garment offerings while reducing the environmental footprint, without sacrificing comfort or performance.”
Through their close collaboration with HeiQ, they are working together to fast-track the commercialization of HeiQ’s AeoniQ yarn and are excited by the impact this ground-breaking innovation will have on the apparel industry.
Actually, Hugo Boss and The Lycra Company are strong endorsements of HeiQ AeoniQ’s game-changing potential. This also demonstrates our ability to commercialize our HeiQ AeoniQ IP, now with an implied valuation of $200 million.
Carlo Centonze, co-founder & Group CEO of HeiQ said, “HeiQ AeoniQ yarn is a versatile alternative to polyester and nylon and its climate-positive qualities create a very exciting market opportunity for HeiQ, as fashion brands and retailers come under increasing pressure to do their part in decarbonizing their products and reduce their environmental footprints.”
HeiQ AeoniQ will build its first commercial giga factory in Central Europe by end of 2024 and is currently scaling up its pilot commercialization plant for fiber production, scheduled for the second quarter of 2022.
HeiQ AeoniQ yarns are made out of cellulosic biopolymers that during growth bind carbon from the atmosphere.
Over 60 percent of the global annual textile output of 111 million metric tons HeiQ AeoniQ yarn is designed to substitute existing oil-based filament yarns, such as environmentally persistent polyester and nylon.
