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…
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