Vegan, recyclable, soft like leather – this material is intended to refine artificial leather
The founding team of Lovr: Montgomery Wagner, Lucas Fuhrmann and Julian Mushövel (from left to right)
Quelle: LOVR/Revoltech
Three founders from Darmstadt want to replace leather in the fashion and furniture industry with their product. Among other things, leftover materials from hemp production are used for production. Investors give millions. Lovr is not even on the market yet.
Tanimal-free leather? No problem. It’s called faux leather – and it’s been around forever. However, this does not have the best image. And often a pretty lousy CO₂ footprint too. Artificial leather is mostly made of PVC, i.e. plastic.
A Darmstadt start-up now wants to make the alternative to the alternative big. With Lovr, it is launching a material that not only looks and feels like leather, but is made from purely plant-based materials. It is therefore also recyclable and biodegradable.
This idea also convinced B.value AG, an investment and financing company that specializes in young biotechnology and chemical companies, BMH Beteiligungs-Managementgesellschaft Hessen and HEAG, an investment company of the city of Darmstadt.
Together, as part of a seed round at the end of May, the investors put a seven-figure sum into Revoltech – the start-up behind the imitation leather Lovr.
Lovr is an acronym and stands for “leather-like, plastic-free, vegan, residue-based”. Among other things, leftover materials from hemp production are used for production.
For comparison: According to the company, the manufacturing process only produces 0.3 percent of the CO₂ emissions that are otherwise released in conventional leather production.
Leather alternatives made from natural raw materials
This is possible due to a “groundbreaking technology”, according to CTO Julian Mushövel on “Gründerszene”. Together with Lucas Fuhrmann and Montgomery Wagner, he started Revoltech in 2021 as a spin-off from the TU Darmstadt.
The three founders believe in the impact their leather alternative can have. On the one hand, the material can be used in the fashion industry. On the other hand, also in the furniture or automotive industry.
The textile industry causes 10 percent of global CO₂ emissions and thus more than international air traffic and shipping combined. In the production of leather or artificial leather, chemicals and microplastics also pollute the environment.
In the field of natural leather alternatives, different approaches are being tried out internationally. For example, the Spanish designer Carmen Hijosa developed Piñatex, a material made from the fibers of pineapple leaves.
Other companies are working with a leather substitute made from leftover apples called apple leather. The Berlin start-up Zvnder makes wallets out of fungiskin, a leather-like material made from mushroom mycelium.
However, the Darmstadt-based company’s variant is not yet on the market. “With the seed round we are financing our market entry,” said Montgomery Wagner, Co-Founder & COO of Revoltech in a statement. “The next two years will be about making the step from the laboratory to industry.”