Boston-based startup “Galy” recently closed a $33 million series B funding round for its lab-grown cotton technology. You heard that right – just like meat and dairy and even diamonds, Galy is “growing” cotton in bioreactors. The company also claims its technology can work for almost any product that comes from a plant.
The textile industry over the years has developed a lot of synthetic fibers designed to be cheaper alternatives to natural fibers such as cotton. Most of these are made from petroleum-based materials. Up to 70% of the household textile products we use—everything from clothing to footwear—are made of petroleum-based materials like polyester and nylon.
The problem is that these synthetic fibers don’t break down easily and end up accumulating in landfills. The waste problem has ballooned in recent decades as so-called “fast fashion” companies crank out cheap goods that can only survive a couple of trips through the washing machine before being trashed. Of the 100 billion garments produced each year, 92 million tons end up in landfills.
The world’s most beloved natural fiber, cotton, has its own issues, including ties to forced labor in China and deforestation in Brazil that have scandalized the fashion industry. Cotton is also a labor and water-intensive crop that can make it challenging to grow. Drought in particular can ravage cotton fields, as growers like those in West Texas and other drought-prone areas of the US are very aware.
At the same time, the world is not exactly short on cotton. If anything, there is a glut of the stuff right now. So why do we need to grow more of it in labs?
For some, the motivation is environmental. They say cotton’s water requirements are incompatible with a warming planet where freshwater resources are becoming more scarce. A popular statistic that has been used for years – it takes over 700 gallons of water to grow enough cotton for a single T-shirt. I don’t know if that stat is accurate but it is true that it takes a plentiful supply of water to keep cotton plants happy. However, it’s not necessarily more thirsty than other common crops and requires even less water than corn in some growing regions.
Some end-users find lab-grown cotton appealing for reasons like the reliability of quantity and quality. That’s the case with Suzuran Medical, one of the largest manufacturers of surgical cotton in the world. The company in 2023 struck a deal with Galy to use thousands of tons a year of its “Literally Cotton” fibers as part of a 10-year, $50 million partnership. Suzuran Medical president Yasuhiro Kunieda says Galy’s lab-grown cotton will provide “a means of procuring raw materials that are less susceptible to weather and environmental influences in stable quantities and at stable prices.”
To make its cotton, Galy starts with live cells collected from cotton plants. The cells are then grown in bioreactor or fermentation vessels in a cell culture process similar to beer brewing. Galy technicians then manipulate genes to transform the cells into an elongated cotton fiber. The final product, once dried and harvested, can allegedly be used just like regular cotton. By growing cotton this way, Kuneida says it can safeguard the material from the detrimental impacts of climate change.
Galy claims the process is 10 times faster and 500 times more productive than traditional cotton farming, while also using 99% less water and 97% less land than traditional cotton, and emitting 77% less carbon dioxide. What the company can’t provide yet is a cost. The company is only producing small quantities at the moment, though it is in the process of scaling up.
Galy is also looking to branch out into other crops. Kuneida told Bloomberg that the company wants to make cell-based cocoa and coffee and even provided samples at an event earlier this year. The latest funding round was led by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures. It also included two of the world’s largest fast-fashion brands, H&M Group and Inditex (the parent company of Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius and others). There is not much information on the website but you can check it out HERE.
As I see it, lab-grown cotton might provide a more stable supply in the face of climate change, but it is probably not the environmental “fix” that some think it is. The bigger problem is simply overconsumption, which has nothing to do with cotton farming. The number of times a garment is worn has declined by around -35% in the last 15 years, with items typically only worn seven to ten times before being tossed. In America alone, our throwaway culture generates some 11.3 million tons of textile waste every year. That’s equivalent to approximately 81.5 pounds per person per year and around 2,150 pieces per second countrywide. It also won’t fix the pollution problem associated with color and chemicals that are applied to fabrics. Dyeing and finishing fabrics are blamed for a whopping 20% of water pollution worldwide. (Sources: AgFunder, Bloomberg, Green Queen)
