50 European Fashion Tech Startups To Have On Your Radar In 2026

Fashion tech startups in Europe have stopped talking about the metaverse and started talking about returns rates, recycling plants and the EU’s Digital Product Passport. Which, frankly, is a relief. Since we published the first version of this list in early 2025, the money has followed the boring-but-brilliant stuff: AI that fixes your sizing before the dress is even made, robots that price your old jumper in two minutes, a stitching thread that dissolves so a coat can be recycled, and enough traceability software to give a supply chain a passport photo.

So we started from scratch. Below are the 50 European fashion tech start-ups to have on your radar in 2026, grouped by what they actually do, each with the funding round, launch, award or partnership that earned its place. Every entry was checked in September 2026 and every link was tested. Where a figure comes from the company itself, we say so.

How we picked: headquartered in Europe (the UK counts, obviously), privately held, and something new to show for the past 12 months. A handful of scale-ups and one very determined comeback made the cut with a caveat; listed companies, corporate subsidiaries and anyone who has gone quiet since 2024 did not. Which is why several names from last year’s list, from Bambuser to Lalaland (now owned by Browzwear), are missing.

Jump To A Category

• AI Design, Imagery & Data (1–8)
• Fit, Sizing & Returns (9–11)
• Wardrobe, Styling & Shopping Apps (12–16)
• Rental, Resale & Repair (17–27)
• Traceability, Passports & Impact Data (28–33)
• Next-Gen Materials & Colour (34–40)
• Recycling & Manufacturing (41–48)
• Retail Experience & Wearables (49–50)
• European Fashion Tech: Your Questions Answered

AI Design, Imagery & Data

Generative AI has gone from party trick to production tool. These are the companies designing the collection, shooting the campaign and forecasting the sell-through before a single sample lands.

1. The Fabricant – The Digital Couture House That Became An AI Studio

Amsterdam’s The Fabricant began life in 2018 as a digital-only fashion house and has pivoted hard: the business is now an AI design suite covering sketch-to-image, AI model photoshoots and e-commerce assets. In February 2026 it won EU backing through EIT Culture & Creativity for “Image to Pattern”, a project to turn sketches into production-ready patterns alongside London College of Fashion and three manufacturing partners.

Why we care: The company that made its name on clothes you could never wear is now trying to shorten the time between a sketch and a factory. Growth, of a sort.

2. yoona.ai – Berlin’s Generative Design Engine

Co-founded in Berlin in 2020 by CEO Anna Franziska Michel, yoona.ai sells brands an enterprise AI platform for product design, trend forecasting and sales prediction. It was a finalist for the ANDAM Innovation Prize 2026 and runs its own AI Design Award, with the 2026 final held at its yoona AI Summit in Berlin in June.

Why we care: Trend forecasting used to be a PDF that arrived twice a year. Now it is a live model that also tells you what will sell.

3. Alphalyr – The AI That Won ANDAM 2026

Founded in Paris in 2017 by Bertrand Fredenucci and Nicolas Fellous, Alphalyr turns a brand’s retail, wholesale, e-commerce and supply-chain data into day-to-day operational decisions. In May 2026 it took the €100,000 ANDAM Innovation Prize, the French fashion industry’s main innovation award.

Why we care: Fashion has a data problem and a spreadsheet habit. ANDAM just endorsed the fix.

4. Modelia – Flat-Lays Into Model Shots, Automatically

Madrid-founded in 2024 by Iván Rodríguez and René Haas, Modelia’s AI turns product photos into on-model imagery, poses, outfit combinations and fashion video for e-commerce, and counts Desigual and AWWG among its clients. It raised a €1.03 million seed in June 2026 led by Next Tier, having processed more than 300,000 SKUs (company figure).

Why we care: The e-commerce photoshoot is becoming optional. (Sorry, models.)

5. Covision Media – Industrial 3D Scanners For Adidas And Zara

From Bressanone in the Italian Alps, Covision Media builds AI-powered 3D scanners that create relightable digital twins of products for e-commerce, try-on and AR, with Adidas, Inditex and Gucci as customers and collaborations with Meta and NVIDIA. It closed a €5 million seed in March 2025 co-led by CDP Venture Capital’s AI fund, Euregio+, Redstone and The Techshop.

Why we care: Every product page you scroll in 2027 may be a scan, not a photo.

6. Veesual – See The Dress On Three Sizes At Once

Paris-based Veesual, founded in 2020 by Maxime Patte and Damien Meurisse, makes generative try-on imagery that lets shoppers switch the model and, since February 2025, see a garment on three different sizes at once. Eileen Fisher has been testing the multi-sizing tool on its product pages. The company is now also pushing a sister image-to-video product, VidCap AI.

Why we care: “What does it look like in a 14?” finally has an answer that isn’t a guess.

7. Athena Studio – Luxembourg’s AI Operating System For Product Teams

Founded in 2023 by Heidi Van Dyck and ex-Googler Arnaud Hillen, Athena Studio is an AI-native operating system for concept-to-market teams, recommending fabric alternatives and optimising margins and lead times. It was one of six start-ups selected for the 2025 New York Fashion Tech Lab cohort, and has been bootstrapped and grant-funded so far.

Why we care: Luxembourg is not a fashion capital. Athena Studio didn’t get the memo, and that’s the point.

8. Catecut – Iceland’s Product-Data Whisperer

Built by Icelandic company Sowilo, founded by Heiðrún Ósk Sigfúsdóttir, Catecut reads a product image and writes the title, description, tags and multilingual metadata that make it findable by search engines and AI shopping agents. Sowilo raised a pre-seed round in July 2026 from Kría and TGC Capital, with enterprise retail pilots under way.

Why we care: If ChatGPT can’t read your product page, it can’t recommend your product. Catecut is the fix for the unglamorous half of AI shopping.

Fit, Sizing & Returns

Returns are fashion’s dirtiest secret and its most expensive line item. These three are attacking the problem before checkout, at checkout and, in one case, before the garment is even cut.

9. eComID – The Shopping Passport Backed By H&M

Stockholm’s eComID, co-founded in 2023 by CEO Oscar Rundqvist with H&M Group as a strategic investor, builds a “Shopping Passport” that carries your size and preferences between brands, plus Vera, an AI shopping agent with sizing intelligence. It works with COS, J.Lindeberg, Axel Arigato and Asket, says its shoppers return 30 per cent less, and raised a €14.6 million seed in August 2026 led by Systemiq Capital.

Why we care: One profile, every brand, correct size. It’s the thing we’ve all wanted since online shopping was invented.

10. Maeve AI – Fixing Fit Before The Factory

Formerly Fit Collective, London’s Maeve AI was founded in 2023 by Savile Row-trained designer Phoebe Gormley. Its AI analyses returns, fabric and sales data to correct sizing at the production stage, for clients including Rixo and Boden. In November 2025 it raised a €3.4 million pre-seed backed by AlbionVC, SuperSeed and True Global, which the company says is the UK’s largest-ever round by a solo female founder.

Why we care: Most fit tech nags the shopper. Maeve nags the brand, which is where the problem actually lives.

11. Sizekick – Munich’s AI Size Advisor

Founded in 2022 by David Oldeen and Jake Lydon and backed by textile-testing institute Hohenstein, Sizekick recommends sizes from a body-shape selection or a phone scan, and ships as a Shopify app. In 2025 Swiss lingerie start-up Myne used its tech to launch AI-personalised, made-to-measure bras.

Why we care: Bra sizing is the final boss of fit technology. Someone had to try.

Wardrobe, Styling & Shopping Apps

The consumer end of fashion tech, where the users are counted in millions and the investors now include eBay, Google and Vinted.

12. Whering – The Digital Wardrobe With 10 Million Users

Founded in 2020, Bianca Rangecroft’s London app digitises your wardrobe, plans outfits, packs your suitcase and links you to resale for the pieces you never wear. In July 2026 it announced a $7 million seed led by eBay Ventures and Google’s AI Futures Fund, and says it has passed 10 million users worldwide.

Why we care: Cher Horowitz’s closet computer is real, British, and Google is paying for it.

13. Save Your Wardrobe – From Wardrobe App To Repair Infrastructure

Founded in 2017, Hasna Kourda’s London company began in after-sales (repair, care and alteration) and now sells brands the B2B infrastructure for it: AI damage detection, repairability scoring and repair operations, with LVMH, Zalando and H&M among the logos on its site. In December 2025 it partnered with Fairly Made to offer brands an end-to-end circularity and compliance package.

Why we care: Repair is about to be a legal expectation in Europe, not a nice-to-have. Someone has to run the back end.

14. Faircado – The Second-Hand Shopping Assistant

Berlin’s Faircado, led by co-founder Evoléna de Wilde d’Estmael, is a browser extension and app that finds the second-hand version of whatever you’re about to buy new, aggregating listings across marketplaces. The company says it was Apple’s App of the Day on Earth Day 2026 and was named to a “50 Next Impact Startups to Watch” list in June.

Why we care: It makes buying used the path of least resistance, which is the only way most people will ever do it.

15. Tilt – Live Auctions, Now With Vinted’s Money

Founded by ex-Revolut duo Abhi Thanendran and Neil Shah, London’s Tilt is a live-auction shopping app for fashion, sneakers and collectibles with AI listing tools, running in the UK, Italy, Spain and Poland. In June 2026 it raised $26 million, taking its total past $50 million, with Vinted Ventures joining Balderton, TQ Ventures, Earlybird and Seedcamp.

Why we care: Live shopping never quite happened in Europe. Vinted clearly thinks that’s about to change.

16. Lookiero Outfittery Group – Europe’s Personal-Styling Giant (With A Caveat)

Not a start-up any more, but too big a story to skip: Spain’s Lookiero and Berlin’s Outfittery merged in spring 2025 to create a personal-styling-box group with around €130 million in combined annual revenue, three million customers and 13 markets. In January 2026 it raised €17 million from Spanish investors to strengthen logistics and build new AI styling features.

Why we care: The “box of clothes a stylist picked for you” model has consolidated into one European champion. Watch how much of the styling is human by 2027.

Rental, Resale & Repair

The biggest section, because circular fashion is where European fashion tech is actually making money. Uber delivers the ski suit, robots price the jumper, and the sewing machine is back on the shop floor.

17. By Rotation – Rentals Delivered By Uber

Eshita Kabra-Davies’ peer-to-peer rental app, founded in 2019, has more than 1.5 million users (company figure) and an inventory it values at over $100 million. From January to May 2026 it ran a tie-up with Uber for on-demand delivery of rentals in the UK, including ski wear, within 60 minutes.

Why we care: Renting a designer dress is now faster than getting a takeaway. We’re not sure that’s healthy, but we are sure it’s convenient.

18. HURR – Dress To Door In 25 Minutes

Founded by Victoria Prew and run since April 2026 by CEO Lauren Roberts, the UK rental and resale marketplace lists more than 80,000 designer pieces. Its Deliveroo “Dress to Door” partnership, launched in November 2024, expanded in December 2025 beyond London to Kent, Manchester, Birmingham, Northampton and Staffordshire, with delivery in as little as 25 minutes.

Why we care: Rental’s last excuse, “it won’t arrive in time”, is officially dead.

19. Cocoon – The Handbag Membership That Absorbed Its Rivals

Launched in London in 2019, Cocoon rents authenticated luxury handbags by monthly membership (from £89) and sells pre-owned pieces alongside. In December 2025 it folded MyWardrobe HQ and More Luxury Club into the business, with the stated aim of becoming the “definitive category leader” in circular luxury.

Why we care: Consolidation is what happens when a category grows up. Rental just did.

20. Reflaunt – Resale-As-A-Service, Now For Stylists Too

Stéphanie Crespin’s London company, founded in 2017, is the technology behind branded resale programmes for the likes of Balenciaga and Harvey Nichols. In June 2026 it launched Folio, a white-glove service that lets personal shoppers and stylists list clients’ pieces across Vestiaire, TheRealReal, Poshmark, ThredUp and Rebag in one go.

Why we care: The people who sell you the clothes are now the people who help you sell them on. Full circle, literally.

21. Faume – White-Label Resale For 45 Brands

Founded in Paris in 2020 by Aymeric Déchin, Nicolas Viant, Jocelyn Kerbourc’h and Lucas Patricot, Faume runs branded resale for more than 45 labels, from Lacoste and Isabel Marant to Victoria Beckham, and has sold over 300,000 items (company figure). In April 2025 it raised €8 million led by Amundi’s Transition Juste fund, with Daphni and Bpifrance, to expand into Italy and the UK.

Why we care: “Pre-loved” on a brand’s own website used to be radical. Faume made it a plug-in.

22. Fleek – The Wholesale Engine Behind Your Vintage Shop

Y Combinator-backed and founded in London in 2021 by Abhi Arora and Sanket Agarwal, Fleek is a B2B marketplace and AI infrastructure layer for the second-hand supply chain, connecting more than 2,000 suppliers with 50,000-plus buyers in over 100 countries. In July 2026 it raised a $25 million Series B led by Burda Principal Investments with eBay, FJ Labs and H14, alongside existing investors including a16z and Y Combinator, taking its total to around $45 million.

Why we care: Every cute vintage boutique on your high street is buying from somewhere. Increasingly, it’s here.

23. Reskinned – Takeback, Resale And Repair For 30 Brands

Run from Canning Town by co-founders Matt Hanrahan and Ross Barry, Reskinned handles takeback, resale, repair and recycling for more than 30 brands including Nobody’s Child, Finisterre, Sweaty Betty and M&S, and became a B Corp in March 2025. In July 2026 Urban Outfitters UK launched a Reskinned-run takeback scheme offering £10 credit per item.

Why we care: The “send it back to us” box on a brand’s website is only as good as the company behind it.

24. VNYX – The Robot That Prices Your Old Clothes

Amsterdam’s VNYX, founded in 2025 by Romy Goedhart and Vincent van der Holst, combines robotics and AI to photograph, grade and price returns, overstock and second-hand garments in around two to three minutes rather than 19, so resale becomes cheaper than destruction (which the EU is banning). It raised over €1 million in May 2026 and unveiled its resale robot in Amsterdam in July.

Why we care: Nineteen minutes per item is why brands burn returns. Two minutes is why they might stop.

25. Minimist – Vienna’s Co-Pilot For Second-Hand Sellers

Founded in 2024 by ex-Google and Spotify alum Stephan Hofmann with Henrik Feldt, Minimist turns a photo into a listing, prices it and cross-posts it to eBay, Vinted and Depop, claiming 95 per cent faster digitisation for sellers and charity retailers. It raised a €350,000 pre-seed in January 2025 from Austrian angels and the Vienna Planet Fund.

Why we care: The reason your Vinted pile is still a pile is admin. This is the admin.

26. Yaga – Tallinn’s Marketplace, Built For South Africa

An Estonian company with a South African customer base is an unusual shape, and it works: founded in 2017 by Aune Aunapuu, Yaga is a social second-hand marketplace with 12 million monthly visits and a €50 million-plus GMV run-rate, and it’s profitable (company figures). In October 2025 it raised a €4 million pre-Series A led by Specialist VC, with H&M Group among the backers.

Why we care: Proof that European fashion tech can win in markets Vinted hasn’t reached yet.

27. SOJO – The Repair App That Runs Selfridges’ Sewing Machine

Josephine Philips’ London start-up, founded in 2021, digitised clothing repairs and alterations and now runs repair services for Selfridges (in-store), M&S and Next. According to its May 2026 update, repair accounted for 12 per cent of Selfridges’ £17.6 million in circular revenue in 2025, helped by an on-floor sewing machine and a new embroidery service.

Why we care: A repair service with revenue figures a department store is happy to publish. That’s how you know it’s working.

Traceability, Passports & Impact Data

The EU’s Digital Product Passport is coming for your clothes, and the software companies below are the ones brands are paying to get ready. Less glamorous than a hologram dress, considerably more lucrative.

28. Fairly Made – The Traceability Platform LVMH Just Crowned

Founded in Paris in 2018 by Laure Betsch and Camille Le Gal, Fairly Made runs traceability, impact measurement and Digital Product Passports for more than 100 brands, LVMH houses included. It raised €15 million in April 2025 led by BNP Paribas’ Solar Impulse Venture Fund, launched an AI “Supply Chain Intelligence” tool in July, announced plans for a New York office in May 2026, and in June won the LVMH Innovation Award’s Best Impact prize at VivaTech.

Why we care: When the world’s biggest luxury group gives you an award for knowing where things come from, the passport era has arrived.

29. TrusTrace – Supply-Chain Data You Can Ask Questions

Stockholm’s TrusTrace, led by co-founder Shameek Ghosh, maps supply chains down to farm level for brands including Adidas and Asics, with data on more than 120,000 suppliers in 80-plus countries. ASOS signed up for end-to-end traceability in September 2025, and in September 2026 the company launched a new platform with natural-language “Supply Chain Intelligence” queries.

Why we care: “Where did the cotton in this T-shirt come from?” is about to be a question you can type.

30. Retraced – Düsseldorf’s Compliance Engine

Co-founded by Lukas Pünder and Philipp Mayer, Retraced is a supply-chain compliance and traceability platform used by more than 150 brands, including Desigual and Pangaia, across what the company now says is 30,000-plus suppliers. Fresh off a €15 million Series A led by Partech in late 2024, it partnered with labelling giant r-pac in January 2025 to link supply-chain data to on-product identifiers, piloted with Moose Knuckles.

Why we care: The passport needs to be physically on the garment. This is the bit that makes that happen.

31. Haelixa – DNA Sprayed On Your Cotton

An ETH Zurich spin-off, Haelixa applies DNA markers to fibres at source so a finished garment can be physically tested for origin, and the markers are GOTS and OEKO-TEX compliant. In February 2026 it raised €2 million led by Verve Ventures and Zürcher Kantonalbank to scale globally, on the back of seven-figure revenues and multi-year brand contracts.

Why we care: Paperwork can be faked. A DNA test on a jumper is harder to argue with.

32. Carbonfact – The Carbon Platform That Bought Its Rival

Paris-based Carbonfact, founded in 2021 and led by CEO Marc Laurent, does product-level environmental data and carbon reporting specifically for apparel and footwear, with On, Ganni and The North Face on the client list. In May 2026 it acquired Berlin rival Vaayu, founded by ex-Zalando executive Namrata Sandhu, creating a combined platform serving more than 300 brands.

Why we care: Two of fashion’s biggest sustainability data companies became one. The reporting rules aren’t getting simpler, but the vendor list just did.

33. EntroMetrix – Digital Twins For The Factory Floor

Rooted in University of Cambridge research and led by Dr Mohammed Ali, London’s EntroMetrix uses AI and physics-based digital twins to stabilise factory operations, with research cited by the H&M Foundation pointing to 20 to 30 per cent reductions in energy and resource use. In June 2026 it was named a winner of the H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award, with a €200,000 grant and a year-long accelerator.

Why we care: Most of fashion’s footprint is in the factory, not the shop. This is tech for the part nobody photographs.

Next-Gen Materials & Colour

Bacteria that dye, seaweed that stretches, sequins made from plants. The materials science is finally leaving the lab, and IKEA is writing cheques.

34. Modern Synthesis – Leather Grown By Bacteria

Founded in London in 2019 by Jen Keane and Ben Reeve, Modern Synthesis grows nanocellulose-based alternatives to leather and coated textiles using microbes. In February 2025 it raised $5.5 million led by Berlin climate fund Extantia, with Artesian and Collaborative Fund.

Why we care: A material that is neither animal nor plastic, made in London. The luxury houses are watching.

35. Colorifix – Dyeing With Microbes, Backed By IKEA

Norwich’s Colorifix replaces petrochemical dyes with engineered microorganisms that grow, deposit and fix colour onto fabric. In July 2025 it closed an $18 million Series B2 first close led by Inter IKEA Group to fund global commercial expansion.

Why we care: Textile dyeing is one of the most polluting steps in fashion. IKEA betting on the biological fix is a big deal.

36. Pili – Bio-Indigo For Your Jeans

French biotech Pili, founded in 2015 and led by Jérémie Blache, ferments bio-based dyes and pigments, with a bio-indigo for denim as its flagship. In May 2026 the ANDAM Innovation Prize jury gave it a special recognition award for responsible sourcing (the main prize went to Alphalyr), three years after its $15.8 million Series A.

Why we care: Your next pair of jeans could be blue because of a microbe rather than a petrochemical plant. Same colour, different story.

37. Sparxell – Glitter And Sequins, Minus The Plastic

A University of Cambridge spin-out founded in 2023 by Dr Benjamin Droguet and Professor Silvia Vignolini, Sparxell makes structural-colour pigments, sequins and glitter from plant cellulose, mimicking a butterfly wing. It raised €4.2 million in February 2026 led by SWEN Capital Partners, has collaborated with British designer Patrick McDowell and launched textile inks with Portugal’s Positive Materials.

Why we care: Party season without microplastics. Also on our beauty tech list, because glitter is glitter. READ MORE → 50 Beauty Tech Start-Ups To Have On Your Radar In 2026.

38. Tera Mira – Seaweed Stretch To Replace Elastane

London’s Tera Mira, founded by Jeanne Bégon-Lours and Lucy Dain-Williams, is developing a seaweed-derived bio-based stretch fibre to replace elastane, using a low-temperature, solvent-free process. It won the H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award in June 2026, with a €200,000 grant.

Why we care: Elastane is in almost everything you own and makes almost none of it recyclable. Fixing that is the whole game.

39. Ponda – Puffer Filling Grown On Wetlands

Bristol-based Ponda (formerly Saltyco), founded in 2020 and led by Julian Ellis-Brown, makes BioPuff, a plant-based insulation grown from typha on rewetted peatland, with Berghaus and Stella McCartney among its partners. In July 2026 it raised £1.8 million co-led by Faber and Counteract and led a £2.35 million Defra-backed project to build a 30-hectare wetland fibre farm.

Why we care: A puffer jacket that restores a peat bog rather than draining an oil well. British farming, but make it fashion.

40. Fiberly – Cotton, Rebuilt From Old Clothes

Toulouse-based Fiberly, founded and led by Bénédicte Quinta, extracts cellulose from discarded textiles and rebuilds it into a fibre designed as a drop-in replacement for cotton. It was a Global Change Award 2026 winner and an ANDAM Innovation Prize 2026 finalist, and previously took the Biomimicry Institute’s Ray of Hope Prize.

Why we care: Cotton needs land and water we don’t have spare. Old T-shirts we have in abundance.

Recycling & Manufacturing

Where the really big money is: textile-to-textile recycling plants, robotic disassembly lines and factories that make a garment in 48 hours. Several of these are scale-ups rather than start-ups, and one is a comeback.

41. Syre – Recycled Polyester At Hyperscale

Founded in Stockholm in 2023, Syre is building textile-to-textile recycled polyester at industrial scale. In May 2026 it signed an agreement with Target for up to 70,000 tonnes of recycled polyester with integration targeted by 2030, adding to deals with H&M Group and Nike, and in March it partnered with ABB to explore automation and electrification for its first gigascale plant, in Vietnam.

Why we care: Polyester is more than half of all fibre made. If anyone can close that loop at scale, it changes the maths for the whole industry.

42. Circulose – The Comeback Kid

The company formerly known as Renewcell went bankrupt in 2024; private equity firm Altor bought the assets and relaunched it as Circulose, now run from Sundsvall by CEO Jonatan Janmark. Its recycled-cotton pulp for viscose and lyocell is due to restart production at the Ortviken plant in the fourth quarter of 2026, with more than a dozen brands signed including H&M, Mango, M&S and Reformation, and the company says it has cut the cost impact per garment by 80 to 90 per cent.

Why we care: Not a start-up in the usual sense, but the most-watched second act in circular fashion.

43. Infinited Fiber Company – Finland’s Waste-To-Fibre Scale-Up

Finland’s Infinited Fiber, led by CEO Sahil Kaushik, makes Infinna, a regenerated cellulose fibre spun from textile waste. Its potential flagship plant in Kemi moved a step forward in March 2026 when the environmental permit advanced to the statutory appeal phase, but the company has also set out a phased plan that starts with a smaller 200-tonne Circular Fiber Center, possibly in Asia, before any 30,000-tonne plant.

Why we care: The gap between a lab fibre and a factory is where most materials start-ups die. Infinited is at the edge of it.

44. Reju – Polyester Regeneration, With Corporate Muscle

A Technip Energies venture rather than a garage start-up, Paris-based Reju, led by CEO Patrik Frisk, regenerates polyester from textile waste using technology developed with IBM Research. In February 2026 it chose Lacq in south-west France for its first French regeneration hub, following a US site announcement in January.

Why we care: When an engineering giant builds recycling plants, the plants tend to get built.

45. Resortecs – The Stitching That Dissolves On Demand

Brussels-based Resortecs, led by co-founder Cédric Vanhoeck, makes heat-dissolvable stitching threads and automated disassembly lines so garments can be taken apart for recycling. In November 2025 it raised €6 million from Goldwin’s Play Earth Fund, Belgian sovereign fund SFPIM and the EIC Fund, with a plan for five disassembly lines across Europe within five years and 3,000 tonnes a year of capacity by 2027.

Why we care: The zip and the thread are why your coat can’t be recycled. This solves the thread.

46. Reverse Resources – The Marketplace For Textile Waste

Estonia’s Reverse Resources, co-founded by CEO Ann Runnel and Nin Castle, is a tracking and trading platform for textile waste that connects more than 1,500 factories with 500-plus verified recyclers and 18 brands including H&M and Patagonia, with over 130,000 tonnes traced (company figures). In 2026 it launched a Network Membership Certificate for waste handlers and published a widely shared analysis of Europe’s recycling-infrastructure costs.

Why we care: Recycling plants need feedstock. This is the company that knows where the waste actually is.

47. Losanje – Robotic Upcycling At Industrial Scale

Founded in 2020 by Simon Peyronnaud and Mathieu Khouri and based near Nevers, Losanje uses robotic cutting to industrialise the upcycling of discarded textiles, and has made pieces for the Paris 2024 Olympics and Sézane. It won the €100,000 ANDAM Innovation Prize in May 2025, the year before Alphalyr.

Why we care: Upcycling has always been artisanal and therefore tiny. Robots make it a supply chain.

48. Rodinia Generation – The 48-Hour Microfactory

Trine Young’s Copenhagen company builds O-Factory, an automated, low-water on-demand production line that takes a garment from design to finished piece in 48 hours, with Hummel and Mads Nørgaard as customers. It has had a quiet year on the announcements front since its €3 million round from EIFO and Climentum in 2024, though Climentum’s August 2025 update cited signed letters of intent with manufacturers.

Why we care: Onshore, on-demand production is the answer to overstock. Rodinia is one of the few in Europe actually running the machines.

Retail Experience & Wearables

Two companies with London addresses making the physical world stranger, in the best way.

49. FFFACE.ME – The AR Mirror Platform

Founded in 2019 by CEO Dmytro Kornilov and co-founders, with offices in London, New York and Paris, the Ukrainian-founded AR studio behind filters and try-ons for L’Oréal, Prada and Puma launched Loook.ai in October 2025, an AR mirror platform that turns any screen into a smart mirror for brands and retailers.

Why we care: The smart mirror finally has a business model: rent the software, not the agency.

50. Vollebak – The Spaceship Shop

London’s Vollebak makes experimental clothing (graphene jackets, copper-thread garments, kit designed for Mars) and in May 2026 its Spaceshop, a 1,000-kilogram aluminium spacecraft-style pop-up store designed with SAGA Space Architects and fitted with Bang & Olufsen sound, landed in London for 48 hours after first launching at Bjarke Ingels Group’s Copenhagen headquarters.

Why we care: Someone in fashion is still having fun with the physical world. Long may it continue.

European Fashion Tech: Your Questions Answered

What counts as fashion tech?

Any technology applied to how clothes are designed, made, sold, worn, resold and recycled: AI design and imagery, fit and sizing software, resale and rental platforms, traceability and Digital Product Passports, new materials, textile recycling and retail experience tech. In 2026 the fastest-moving areas in Europe are circular commerce, DPP compliance and materials science.

Which European fashion tech startups raised the most in 2025 and 2026?

On this list, Fleek’s $25 million Series B (July 2026), Tilt’s $26 million round (June 2026), Colorifix’s $18 million (July 2025), Lookiero Outfittery Group’s €17 million (January 2026), Fairly Made’s €15 million (April 2025) and eComID’s €14.6 million seed (August 2026) are the biggest disclosed rounds.

Which British fashion tech startups should I know?

Nineteen of the 50 are UK-based: Whering, Save Your Wardrobe, Tilt, By Rotation, HURR, Cocoon, Reflaunt, Fleek, Reskinned, SOJO, Maeve AI, EntroMetrix, Modern Synthesis, Colorifix, Sparxell, Tera Mira, Ponda, FFFACE.ME and Vollebak.

Who was on the 2025 list but not this one?

We removed companies that are publicly listed (Bambuser), founded long before the start-up era (ACS Clothing, CuteCircuit), acquired or merged into larger groups (Lalaland by Browzwear, Heuritech by Luxurynsight), no longer active in Europe (We aRe SpinDye) or with nothing substantive to report since 2024 (Auroboros, Avolve, Bagista, Beyond Studio, Bigthinx, Tribute Brand, Fairbrics). Six names carried over on merit.

This list was fully updated and every link tested in September 2026. Spotted a European fashion tech start-up we’ve missed? Tell us on Instagram @themodems.