Paris-based Faircraft secures €15M to accelerate production of lab-grown leather products 

Paris-based Faircraft, a company specialising in lab-grown leather, announced on Thursday that it has secured €15M in funding.

The round was backed by internationally renowned investment funds, including Kindred Ventures (USA), Cap Horn (France), BPI (France), Sake Bosch (Netherlands), Entrepreneur First (UK), Alliance for Impact (France), and Heirloom (USA).

This funding will enable the French company to expand its team, particularly — engineers and biologists, and accelerate its scaling efforts to meet growing demand.

Faircraft: Developing lab-grown leather

Founded in 2021 by Haïkel Balti and César Valencia Gallardo, Faircraft is developing lab-grown leather using cellular biology to create a material with many uses, robust mechanical properties, and a low environmental impact.

The startup develops a lab-grown material derived from animal skin cells that replicate the structure and composition of traditional leather through cellular agriculture processes.

Additionally, the company makes use of the expertise of master tanners who specialise in luxury leather goods to perfect the finishing of this sustainable leather.

The company holds multiple patents for its procedure to produce lab-grown leather, and the process is aimed at scalability, offering a sustainable alternative to the fashion and leather goods industry.

The company’s development and manufacturing laboratories are located at its Paris headquarters.

Faircraft has developed a proprietary, standardised process suited to scalability, conceived and implemented entirely in-house. Faircraft holds two international patents for its innovative and protected production method, ensuring customers benefit from rare expertise.

While the cost of manufacturing Faircraft’s lab-grown leather is currently higher than that of traditional leather, the company is on a clear trajectory toward achieving price parity with leather used widely in the industry.

Haïkel Balti, co-founder, and CEO of Faircraft, says, “Lab-grown leather represents a major evolution that goes far beyond the fashion industry and uses cutting-edge technologies to honour ethical considerations. It enables the creation of unique pieces with minimal environmental impact while offering new possibilities to leather artisans and designers. This technological breakthrough is a tribute to the magic of life.”