Year In Review: Did Materials, In Fact, Matter?

Renewcell’s bankruptcy. Syre’s $600 million injection. TômTex named a Time Best Invention of 2024. Spinnova’s entire year. The fashion industry’s next-generation material space saw a lot of change throughout the past 12 months, including the shuttering of next-gen think tank Material Innovation Initiative (MII) in September and Rubi’s nearly $1 million government grant to scale its carbon-to-cellulose platform in December.

Suffice it to say—sure, the lows were low. But the highs? They were high.

The biggest issue the biomaterials space continues to face is growth—not just the petri dish kind. Securing funding, entering product trials, producing capsules and locking in brand partnerships are individual, complex steps material innovators must take to navigate the hype cycle. There’s no one-size-fits-all formula for how to leave the lab and enter the production floor.

However, here’s a handful of the feats fêted by the next-gen space during 2024, organized by stage.