Refiberd is a California-based textile technology startup and winner of the 2025 Global Fashion Agenda Trailblazer Programme and eBay’s Circular Fashion Innovator of the Year at the CFDA x eBay Circular Fashion Fund. Using proprietary AI and hyperspectral imaging, Refiberd detects and sorts complex fiber blends, contaminants, and textile waste, supporting more circular systems for fashion brands and recyclers.
Their technology enables rapid, non-destructive fiber detection and traceability, which supports accurate sorting, authentication, and recycling of garments ranging from recycled polyester, cotton, and blends to specialty technical textiles.
How Does It Work?
Refiberd’s solution uses hyperspectral cameras and AI-trained models to scan textiles and identify material composition—even in layered or blended garments faster than manual testing techniques. This technology forms a hyperspectral cube of hundreds of images for each sample, which the machine learning algorithm matches to thousands of samples in a proprietary library of reference spectra.
- Fiber Detection: Every textile waste stream is scanned, identifying composition (cotton, nylon, polyester, blends, etc.).
- Contaminant Detection: The model can flag materials and impurities that prevent clean recycling or resale.
- Authentication/Traceability: Forensic techniques (with partners like GenuTrace) add isotope verification at the fiber’s origin, meaning trace it before you make it.
- Sorting & Supply Chain: Recyclers and brands sort and process materials more efficiently, with a projected recycling capability of up to 7 million pounds per camera unit annually.
Refiberd’s digital product passport and fiber-tracking system overcome huge gaps in today’s chemical and tag-based tracing, supporting not just post-consumer but also pre-consumer and production-side circularity.
Origin Story & Founders
Founded in 2020 by Sarika Bajaj (CEO), Tushita Gupta (CTO), and joined by Mingyue Wang (Co-founder), Refiberd evolved from a garage startup in Cupertino, CA, into a climate-tech leader after their engineering backgrounds and textile interests converged at Carnegie Mellon University. Inspired by the textile waste globally and firsthand struggles in sorting waste for recycling, they leveraged university mentorship, grant programs, and a mix of accelerator support to launch the business.
Funding Raised to Date
Refiberd’s impressive funding history includes:
- Seed Funding (2023): $3.4 million, led by True Wealth Ventures, Better Ventures, Schmidt Family Foundation, Fashion for Good, Susquehanna, Carnegie Mellon University, and the National Science Foundation.
- Grants: €200,000 H&M Global Change Award; industry innovation awards and accelerator grants.
- Latest Funding (2025): Refiberd has raised over $6 million in disclosed funding across multiple rounds, including a 2023 $3.4 million seed round and a later strategic investment from PDS Ventures in 2025.
The partnership with PDS Ventures signals an inflection point in scaling AI-enabled recycling infrastructure globally.
Benefits for Consumers
- Circular Fashion: Refiberd’s technology can support brands to develop more recycled and traceable garments—giving consumers genuine circular product choices.
- Trust & Transparency: Isotope and hyperspectral tests can provide strong scientific evidence for fiber authenticity, building trust in pre-owned, recycled, and resale goods.
- Planet-Saving Impact: Accurate sorting can benefit the recycling of garments today, a figure with growth potential as Refiberd tools scale.
Refiberd enables fashion brands to provide fully verified recycled content, so consumers shop circular with confidence.
Applications for Sellers
- Brands: Seamless authentication of recycled textiles; verified circular supply chains to meet both regulatory and consumer sustainability demands.
- Recyclers: Faster, non-destructive sorting can support the reduction of costs, improve yields, and support the processing of millions of pounds of textile waste annually.
- Manufacturers: New business models for trace it before you make it; enhanced batch tracking and raw material verification.
- Marketplace Integrations: Plug-in for authentication and traceability, supporting secondhand and resale fashion platforms.
By investing in Refiberd, PDS Ventures positions itself as a champion for game-changing innovation in circularity and textile recycling.
Future Outlook
- Rapid Scaling: Refiberd aims to deploy thousands of camera units worldwide to help tackle America’s and Europe’s textile waste crises.
- Industry Standardization: Forensic and AI approaches for fiber origin and composition offer new potential for the supply chains of tomorrow.
- Global Partnerships: Further expansion with brands, recyclers, and market leaders (H&M Foundation, eBay, PDS Ventures) positions Refiberd in the broader climate-tech and sustainable fashion initiatives.
- Next-Gen Data: Ongoing development of hyperspectral and AI datasets, tracking fiber blends and contaminants down to trace levels.
