Danish startup Rodinia Generation announced it has raised €3 million from the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO) and Climentum Capital. The company has developed a manufacturing method that drastically reduces carbon emissions and water usage in garment production. With an ambition to eliminate overproduction, Rodinia will use the investment to expand its European production before entering global markets.
Rodinia has developed both in-house hardware and software to run a network of automated microfactories that make clothes exactly when they’re needed, near the customer, and only in the amounts that people buy.
“It should be possible only to make clothes when they are actually bought, without having to transport them from one end of the planet to the other while causing all sorts of damage to people and the environment along the way,” said Rodinia’s founder and CEO Trine Young. “Our first-of-its-kind microfactory has been running in Copenhagen since 2021. We source quality textiles which we print, cure and cut in an automated process without any water or toxic chemicals. Then we have the garments sewn locally.”
Founded in 2017, Rodinia addresses the most polluting processes within the fashion supply chain: dyeing and finishing, i.e. how colour and other chemicals are applied to fabric, and manufacturing, i.e. the actual sewing of garments.
Traditional garment factories need a footprint of 2,000 sqm and use nearly 150 million litres of water to produce 700,000 garments. One of Rodinia’s microfactories can produce the same output while taking up just 200 sqm and using zero litres of water.
Garment designs can be produced in less than two weeks, even in as little as 48 hours, eliminating the need to overproduce to ensure supply – thereby helping reduce the nearly 50 billion unsold garments annually, which costs the fashion and textiles industry EUR 188 billion. “Today, it takes nine months from design to sale. With our microfactories, we can shorten the production process allowing clothing brands to quickly adapt their products to trends – and potentially even sell them before they are manufactured,” said Trine Young.
Rodinia has attracted the interest of several major international customers, including international sportswear brand Hummel and pioneering fashion brands including Mads Nørgaard Copenhagen and children’s clothing brand Wheat.
“For Hummel, it’s a new and exciting way of manufacturing clothes. Not only is there a great demand for less climate-impacting clothing, but we can move production closer to us and deliver the same high quality to our customers faster. We see great opportunities in this collaboration,” commented Andreas Kattenhøj, Product Developer at Hummel.
Starting in Europe, then the US, Rodinia’s ambition is to establish a worldwide network of microfactories that produces garments for international high street and luxury brands with a strong environmental awareness.
“We are investing in Rodinia because EIFO’s ambition is to support companies that can make a difference. Rodinia makes it possible to reduce the overproduction of clothing, thereby saving a lot of resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Its technology reduces water and chemical consumption and eliminates the need for long-distance transport. This is not only beneficial for the climate, but also good for business,” added Rünno Allikivi, Investment Manager in EIFO’s Green Transition investment team.
