Mills & Reeve advises on $18m raise for Colorifix

Norwich-headquartered Colorifix is said to have developed the world’s first entirely biological textile dyeing process which eliminates the use of traditional petrochemicals.

This latest funding round will support the transition from pilot production to full scale commercial manufacturing across Europe and Asia.

Led by Inter IKEA Group with continued support from H&M Group Ventures, Sagana and Regeneration.VC, new investors include Goldwin Play Earth Fund, Ljungstrom family office and Youngone CVC. Inter IKEA group was advised by the venture capital investment team at Mills & Reeve.

Colorifix was recently honoured with a visit to its textile dyes lab in Norwich by The Prince of Wales and Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett as a finalist for the Earthshot Prize, which was launched by Prince William in 2020.

Since its last funding round in 2022, Colorifix has made significant progress in deploying its sustainable dyeing technology across the globe. The company now operates in Europe and Latin America, with licenses also granted for customer onboarding in India and Sri Lanka, underlining a transition from small-scale industrial deployments to large volume commercial capacity.

Colorifix’ main customer focus continues to be the fashion industry, with additional agreements in place for partnerships in the cosmetics and homewares segments.

Colorifix’ technology replaces the traditional need for petrochemicals in dye manufacturing with a biological process – fermentation – enabling significant reductions in environmental impact. It is the only industrial dyeing method that fully uses engineered microorganisms to produce and deposit colour directly onto fabric, requiring no harsh chemicals and significantly less water and energy.

Linn Clabburn from Innovation Ventures at Inter IKEA Group, said: “Colorifix is addressing one of the toughest sustainability challenges in textiles. The company’s progress in scaling this technology and entering new markets aligns well with our ambitions to improve sustainability in the value chain.”

Zickie Lim, partner and head of venture capital investment at Mills & Reeve, who led the team advising Inter IKEA Group, added: “It was absolutely fantastic to work with the Inter IKEA team in making this important investment into such an innovative, cutting-edge business that has the potential to transform the global fashion and textiles industry to enable it to operate in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way in the drive to help protect our planet.

“Colorifix’s technology has huge potential and armed with this latest funding, the company has an excellent platform to achieve its international expansion plans.”

Orr Yarkoni, CEO of Colorifix, commented: “This investment marks a critical milestone as we shift from proving our technology to delivering it at industrial scale. With Inter IKEA Group joining as lead investor and continued backing from H&M, we are uniquely positioned to accelerate adoption of our biology-based dyeing across global supply chains - eliminating the need for petrochemicals in dye production.”