From furniture, to automotive, to industrials, the UK’s textile industry is designing and scaling up new science all the time. But textiles entrepreneurs need support and partnership in order to scale up and to become the international sector leaders of the future. Along the way, support from institutions – corporate, financial and regulatory – are essential to textile startups’ long-term success.

Those objectives brought representatives from around the textiles industry together at an April showcase event hosted by HSBC Innovation Banking and the UK Fashion and Textiles Association (UKFT).

As UKFT CEO Adam Mansell observed in his welcome remarks, when people think about textiles, they often default to the fashion industry. And while the fashion and retail industries are enormously important to economies all over the world, the modern textile industry affects businesses and consumers in many ways, far beyond simply the garments we wear.

While replacing harmful petrochemicals – which remain prevalent in any number of commercial applications – is one clear benefit, innovations in textiles have positive effects up and down supply chains. Take Arda Biomaterials, one of the exhibitors at the showcase: Arda works with some of the world’s largest brewers and distillers to reuse waste grain and turn that byproduct into high-quality leather-like material.

We were treated to panel discussions involving textiles founders, international brands and industry bodies, focused on ways early-stage textiles companies can commercialise their innovations and reach real production scale.

Our first panel of the day focused on routes to commercialising textile innovations. Moderator Georgia Parker of Fashion for Good was joined by Pentland Brands’ Oksana Bondar, Epoch Biodesign founder and CEO Jacob Nathan, and DyeRecycle Chief Commercial Officer Irene Maffini.

Attendees were keen to discern exactly how textiles founders can best appeal to large brands that can offer a precious route to market for their innovations. One important conclusion was that the more startups can demonstrate clear knowledge of a potential customer’s strategy, their position in the market, and their commercial objectives, the better. For instance, “some brands are very retail-oriented, while others have little or no retail presence. Some push new collections every two weeks, while others are much more considered,” said one panellist.

Of course, big partnerships with household names lend an emerging company valuable credibility. But the positive effect of those commercial wins might be diluted if founders aren’t ready to think strategically about how they can capitalise on their successes. “In the early days we managed with grant funding, but as we scaled up, we needed to broaden out our capital stack, which meant raising equity financing but also considering which debt facilities would suit our business goals,” another panellist commented.

When brands of all sizes are tackling global supply chain volatility, is it harder for a pitch from a young, promising startup to cut through? While price sensitivity might be top of mind for commercial partners, startups can add value in other ways, such as giving brands more specificity and depth in their understanding of their supply chains. “Large companies are still hungry to understand where their materials are sourced,” our panel observed, and if startups can help their larger partners improve transparency and accountability here, their chances of commercial success improve.

The day’s second panel, moderated by Monica Buchan-Ng of Textiles for Good, convened to discuss industrialisation. Alongside Monica were Emily White, Chief Innovation Officer at 160-year-old cashmere manufacturer Alex Begg, Solena Materials founder and CEO James MacDonald, and Paraskevi Fotoglou, a sustainability engineer at interiors and upholstery specialist Camira Fabrics.

Boosting textile production inevitably brings new challenges, but greater scale fundamentally changes the economics of an early-stage business. “We are currently producing tens of kilogrammes each month, and at that scale it’s best for us to do this in-house. But as we move towards producing multiple tonnes of material every month, we’ll need to start outsourcing to specialist contractors,” observed one panellist.

Textiles partnerships can be years in the making, and the panel also reflected on the importance of aligning expectations between an early-stage innovator and a more established company. “Brands need to have a commercial reason to participate in these initiatives,” commented one panellist. “Normally, the larger, more established brand will be taking on most of the production burden and up-front investment in a new partnership. That does mean they have more hard deadlines, more reasons to say no, and more restrictions on what they can and can’t support.”

Our innovation showcase displayed the level of ambition in the UK textiles ecosystem. But as startups scale up production and seek the commercial partnerships that can fuel their next years of growth, inevitable hurdles will arise. Constructing robust financial plans, detailing roadmaps that respond to big brands’ strategic goals and KPIs, and recognising the cards early-stage innovators have to play in their search for commercial partners, will all increase early-stage innovators’ chances of becoming tomorrow’s textiles leaders.

Thank you to our co-hosts UKFT and all the attendees for an illuminating and inspiring afternoon. For much more from the HSBC Innovation Banking team, head to our Insights page.