Fast-growing and strong, mushrooms are moving from the plate to other uses as well: packaging, vegan leather, sneaker soles, and more

Biomaterials innovator MycoWorks and its previous investor, General Motors, partnered to co-develop mycelium materials tailored for car interiors in 2022.

Agrifood investors were throwing around the big bucks this week with the launch of two sizeable funds. There was also big news from MycoWorks

“The failure of one is not indicative of the quality of others,” said Matt Scullin.

Mycelium – a weblike fungus that can become a mushroom – might be the next big thing in luxury fashion, as brands turn to leather alternatives in favour of sustainability

MycoWorks, the biomaterials tech company, announced the opening date of the world’s-first commercial-scale Fine Mycelium production plant. Set to begin operating on September 20, 2023, the 136,000 square foot factory will employ more than 350 people, enabling MycoWorks to supply its luxury partners with millions of square feet of Reishi per year. Reishi is a new category of premium, natural material that features the strength, durability, and hand-feel of the finest animal leathers with lower environmental impact.

More than just ‘mushroom leather’

The mycelium-leather maker released three new versions of its Reishi alt-leather as a key brand partner dropped new hat styles.

A growing number of firms are turning fungi roots into clothing and building material.

Start-ups developing new materials like mushroom and lab-grown leather raised $457 million in 2022, down from $980 million in 2021, according to a report published Wednesday by think tank Material Innovation Initiative.

“We have been waiting for years for a natural, sustainable material that meets our quality standards and our customers’ expectations,” a Groupe Roset exec said.

Artistry and craft are the foundation of MycoWorks, a biomaterials company partnering with some of today’s leading fashion brands. According to its artist-founders, Phil Ross and Sophia Wang, these core values lend them a competitive edge in a high-tech industry.

The company has partnered with a biotech firm to incorporate a mycelium-based material into a future furniture line.

Exclusive to the artist’s upcoming digital platform.

Investors like Natalie Portman, John Legend, and GM have poured over $187 million into the firm.

Biomaterials company Bucha Bio has secured 1.1 million dollars in seed funding to accelerate its growth. The US company said it would use the money to…

Eco-friendly fabrics made from recycled materials are increasingly appealing to environmentally conscious consumers. They cost more to make, but more and more manufacturers are betting on the material’s potential. Nike recently launched the Nike Forward line of sportswear made from recycled plastic. “By using waste plastic instead of fabric, we have reduced our carbon footprint …

Quartz is a guide to the new global economy for people in business who are excited by change. We cover business, economics, markets, finance, technology, science, design, and fashion.

There’s a new plant-based leather on the scene, and from what I can tell, it looks great and performs well. It’s definitely a much-needed innovation, as manufacturing real (cow) leather is incredib…

Seoul-headquartered startup Mycel will use new funding to open a production plant in South Korea for scaling the manufacture of its fungal-based biomaterials.

Primark has expanded on its partnership with Recover, a recycled cotton fibre manufacturer, making it the first major retailer to launch the company’s

MycoWorks has teamed up with the Los Angeles-based milliner to develop three hats featuring its Reishi mycelium-based biomaterial.

Nick Fouquet’s mushroom leather hats, made with MycoWorks’ Fine Mycelium & Reishi, might replace conventional leather manufacturing in the fashion industry.

An alternative to animal-hide leather is made from mushrooms under the watchful eyes of Bay Area technicians.

ImpactAlpha, May 5 — BlackRock and Singapore’s Temasek launched Decarbonization Partners last year with a combined $600 million commitment. Its first investment: MycoWorks, …

The two investment giants participated in MycoWork’s Series C.

At MycoWorks’ “Freedom of Creation” exhibit, co-founder and chief of culture Sophia Wang discusses how artistic beginnings launched a biotech company that’s churning out fungi-fueled materials fit for “a prince’s yacht” — and driving sustainability and diversity in the corporate world.

In the not-too-distant future when you admire a luxury handbag on someone’s arm or slide into the seats of a friend’s sports car, it might not be leather you’re seeing and feeling, but “mushroom leather.”

MycoWorks is investing $107 million to build its first full-scale mushroom leather production plant in South Carolina, where it will create 400 new jobs.

MycoWorks, a company developing a fungal-based biomaterial that it said could replace leather, has secured $125 million in Series C financing.

The company touts its Fine Mycelium process as the only mycelium engineered to be made-to-order and made-to-specification.

MycoWorks is using the money to build a factory to mass-produce its cow-free product.

Inside the lab growing leather from mushrooms | Matthew L. Scullin, CEO of MycoWorksSubscribe to Freethink on YouTube ►► https://freeth.ink/youtube-subscribe…

The fake leather is made from mycelium – the tubular filaments found on fung – and has been created by San Francisco-based biomaterials company MycoWorks.

Could mushrooms create a vegan leather that doesn’t harm animals or contribute to the climate crisis? In the past year, high fashion has turned to a material called mycelium, which can be grown from fungi in weeks but has the look and feel of calfskin. Experts think that working with mushrooms could…

Vegan leather alternative isn’t just the hot fashion must-have – it could teach us about consumption and waste

/PRNewswire/ — MycoWorks today announced that Ian Bickley has joined the company as a strategic advisor. Bickley brings 25+ years of fashion and luxury market…

Patrick Thomas is the latest addition to MycoWorks’ board, while Saks Off 5th appoints former Amazon executive Shivi Shankaran chief operating officer of its e-commerce business.

Thanks to increasing partnerships between influential fashion players and emerging biomaterials companies, products composed of leather alternatives are becoming more commonplace in luxury. Innovative materials offering more sustainability and comparable quality are fueling the trend, as are heightened focuses on brands’ ethics and values.

SynBio is set to become a powerful double-digit growth sector disrupting the food and fashion industries, a new report predicts.

Artist Phil Ross built sculptures, furniture, and houses with fungi. Now, his mycelium material is being used in Hermès bags, and his company is worth millions.

The growth potential of the plant-based market is exponential.

Armed with extensive patent portfolios, Bolt Threads, Modern Meadow, MycoWorks, Natural Fiber Welding and others are targeting luxury brands with alternative materials.

MycoWorks certainly made headlines in the fashion world in March when it announced a collaboration with Hermès on the creation of Sylvania, a new premium,

A new source of wearable “vegan leather” is being harvested from the fungi kingdom.

Academic-turned-biotech expert Sophia Wang is at the forefront of the fungi movement which is all in the name of fashioning a greener future. Vogue reports

/PRNewswire/ — Biomaterials company MycoWorks today announced the appointment of Chief Science Officer Dr. Janne Kerovuo and Distinguished Scientist of…

The burgeoning climate-focused portfolio from early-stage investor SOSV Investments has managed to raise nearly $2 billion in follow-on financing since the startup companies graduated from the investment firm’s various accelerator programs. Taken together those companies have a collective mar…

From hides derived from fruit to fabrics grown in labs, there have never been more options for shoppers and retailers alike in search of more sustainable solutions.

Hermès has partnered up with MycoWorks to create its first vegan leather product – a reinvention of the classic Victoria bag.

A new round of funding and large-scale production plans from Ecovative solidify plant-based leathers as the new battleground in luxury materials.

The use of plant-based raw materials in the world of fashion is an increasingly upward trend that has provided fertile ground for the research,

Old pointe shoes remind this biomaterials founder to embrace her creative side.

This past week, British fashion designer Stella McCartney unveiled a black ‘leather’ bustier top and pants made not from cow hide, but mycelium, which is grown from fungi. Here’s a closer look at the potential uses of mycelium.

French luxury house Hermès has partnered with biomaterials company MycoWorks to reimagine its Victoria shopper bag in a leather alternative grown from mycelium. The bag will be available from the end of this year and features amber-coloured panels made of mycelium – the thread-like filament structure of fungi. These sheets are tanned and finished by The post Hermès creates mycelium version of its classic leather Victoria bag appeared first on…

The French luxury giant has unveiled a new duffel bag that uses a mushroom leather instead of cowhide or crocodile. Bonkers, or brilliant?

French high fashion brand Hermès to make mushroom leather version of Victoria bag with MycoWorks from California

French fashion brand Hermès joined forces with alternative mycelium-based material firm MycoWorks to unveil a mushroom-based ‘leather’ bag.

The leather-goods powerhouse is testing alternative materials in a break with tradition, reimagining its ‘Victoria’ travel bag in a lab-grown substitute.

MycoWorks, a biomaterials company dedicated to bringing new mycelium materials to the world, unveils collaboration with Hermès.

Breaking away from the maison’s leather canvas traditions.

Designers and tech start-ups are working to improve sustainability and interrupt the path to the landfill.

As animal hides fall out of fashion in some markets, startups are raising capital to create sustainable alternatives.

MycoWorks plans to market Reishi as an “exotic material.”

Changing paradigms became an overused phrase about a decade ago to the point where I couldn’t hear it without rolling my eyes. Interestingly, my…

With COVID-19 cases spiking once again and winter creeping in, today might be the perfect time to get cozy and catch up on some Food Tech News. This week we have stories on mycelium leather, pistac…

MycoWorks, a company creating vegan leather from mushrooms, has had investments from celebrities Natalie Portman and John Legend.

A surprising group of fashion rivals including Stella McCartney and Lululemon are joining forces to back Mylo, a new mushroom leather.

Leather goods made of fungi are versatile and sustainable, a new study finds.

Cultivation of fungi has occurred for thousands of years. Evidence of fermented beverages using yeast dates back to as early as 7000 BCE. In the…

Textiles have a big carbon footprint and then clog landfills when discarded. Could biodegradable clothes be a solution?

Material innovation in isolation won’t solve fashion’s systemic issues.

Arvind Gupta, the founder and head of IndieBio, is leaving the accelerator whose portfolio he helped build into a $3.2 billion life sciences powerhouse, to join the venture capital fund Mayfield. The move is a signal both of Mayfield’s increasing commitment to invest in a thesis around human …

/PRNewswire/ — Biomaterials company MycoWorks today announced additions to their executive team: Chief Manufacturing Officer Doug Hardesty, Chief of Product…

/PRNewswire/ — MycoWorks, the mycelium biomaterials company that produces Reishi™, a non-animal, non-plastic option for fine leather, today announced the…

Denim and leather have helped style some of the most iconic fashion statements throughout history — so when taking apparel full circle, it makes sense to start with these types of classic materials that never seem to go out of vogue.

ImpactAlpha, February 27 – San Francisco-based MycoWorks makes a stronger and more durable “mushroom leather” that it touts as being both animal- and

MycoWorks, creator of a sustainable, fine mycelium leather alternative called Reishi, today announces $17 million in Series A financing for its mycelium based fabrics for the luxury fashion market. The round was led by DCVC […]

Amidst the tidal change rippling through the luxury sector—one that involves reduction of carbon footprint, protection of animal rights and dismissal of plastics—only one leather alternative adhere…

From food to beauty to hotels, companies across industries are adding plant-based products and services to cater to sustainability-focused consumers.

Second to the oil industry, the fashion industry is the world’s largest polluter. As a result, consumers are in growing numbers asking for sustainable fashion items, putting pressure on the fashion industry and textile manufacturers. Synthetic biology has the answer.

The world is having to confront the toxic results of our love affair with plastic. Could nature offer some alternatives?

Researchers and companies are working to use fungi in new and interesting ways.

If you don’t like mushrooms, it might be because you haven’t tried them yet in dress or jacket form. Believe it or not, mushrooms can now be fashioned into flexible leather-like clothing, purses, pants, and even durable furniture and building bricks …

Global Fungal material Market 2017- Ecovative and MycoWorks Market Research Report

The Mendocino Art Center hosts Philip Ross for his presentation of Mycology in Industry (and Art), Sunday, Nov. 5, at 4 p.m., at the Helen Schoeni Theatre on the Mendocino Art Center campus.Ross makes vegan leather from mycelium (the threadlike