Everbloom developed an AI to turn chicken feathers into cashmere

Cashmere clothes are everywhere these days, often at very low prices. The allure is obvious: if you’ve ever worn cashmere, you know it’s soft, light, and warm—a captivating fiber that’s hard to let go of. Unfortunately, those expensive prices often come with a catch.

Cashmere comes from the inner coat of several goats. Typically, one goat shears a sheep twice a year, producing four to six ounces (113 to 170 grams) of cashmere per year. This is not a large offer for a growing market.

“Manufacturers have a lot to worry about,” said Sim Gulati, co-founder and CEO of Everbloomhe told TechCrunch. “What you see now, especially with the arrival of cashmere suits worth 50 dollars, is that they are often shaved.

Instead of trying to change animal husbandry or convince consumers to buy only expensive cashmere, Gulati and his team at Everbloom had another idea. The startup, which has raised more than $8 million from investors including Hoxton Ventures and SOSV, plans to build upcycled products it is almost unrecognizable from the real thing.

In order to do this, Everbloom created a physical science called AI Braid.AI. This model can control different parameters to create threads with different properties. Cashmere is one target, as well as other materials widely used in the textile industry.

At its core, the Everbloom process is the same regardless of the final product. To make its products, the company currently collects waste from all fiber supply channels, including cashmere and wool farms and mills, as well as textile suppliers. In the future, it plans to grow other wastes, including feathers from the poultry industry. These waste streams share one thing in common: they are all made of keratin, an important protein that supports Everbloom’s function.

The company then cuts the waste to size and combines it with the right materials. The mixture is pressed through a plastic machine (which produces products by pressing them through a die), and the paper that comes out at the other end is fed through a spinning machine used to produce polyester fiber. “Those tools are used for 80% of the textile market,” said Gulati. “You’ve got to be a downer.”

Turning the waste into new fiber, all the necessary treatment is done inside the two machines. Everbloom can produce yarns that range from polyester to cashmere by using its AI to control the design and process of the machine.

The founders said that any fiber they produce must be biodegradable, even if it is a substitute for polyester.

“All the materials we are using are perishable,” Gulati said, adding that his company is developing its products through rapid testing to confirm its assumptions. And because Everbloom uses waste, the damage to the environment will be minimal, he said.

Also, it should be affordable, too. “We want it to be more economically viable for brands and consumers,” Gulati said. “I don’t believe in ‘sustainable finance'” – the idea that environmentally friendly products should cost more. “For a product to be successful – in sales (and) to consumers – you have to have a product benefit and a financial benefit for everyone who touches the product. That’s what we’re planning.”