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The first digital supply chain platform for textile businesses
FIRST OF ITS KIND
raised $4.95 million.
Tengiva, the first digital supply chain platform for the textile industry, has announced that it has raised CAD$4.95 million in seed funding.
The funding round was led by Fonds Ecofuel, with participation from Inovia, Anges Québec, Active Impact Investments, and N49P. The funds raised include $1.7 million in commercialisation funding from the Investissement Québec Innovation Program, and a $100,000 grant from the Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) Seed Funding program.
Textile production is a trillion dollar industry, and still mostly managed offline without much modern digitisation. Tengiva was created to solve some of the biggest industry
challenges, which, for emerging clothing designers, is the ability to source materials quickly, cost effectively, and sustainably. By modernising the complex and outdated months-long sourcing and distribution process used in the textile industry, Tengiva is making it easier for clothing brands to seamlessly source the textiles needed directly from manufacturers in the quantities they need, while enabling sellers to build their online presence, easily showcase their materials to develop new business relationships, and reach new markets. Today, millions of dollars of inventory are available through the Tengiva platform, including more than 300 different materials that are available to brands in 30 countries worldwide.
Annie Cyr, Co-founder and CEO of Tengiva
Tengiva will use the funds to commercialise its platform, build a state-of-the-art warehouse, and execute on its global expansion strategy. Annie Cyr, Co-founder and CEO of Tengiva, said, “The textiles industry is one of the oldest in the world, with the manufacture and trade of fabrics dating back thousands of years. While consumers today can easily purchase fashion products online from any clothing brand worldwide, the supply chain that enables the flow of textiles from mill to fabric manufacturer to apparel brand has not kept pace. Our platform is changing this by modernising the global distribution and trade of textiles, ensuring the critical steps that take place behind the scenes of every piece of clothing manufactured and sold is as
automated and streamlined as possible.”
Johanne Sevigny, Managing Partner at Fonds Ecofuel, added, “With 7.2 per cent of global climate impact caused by textile production alone, Tengiva platform is the key to better act on significant gaps in the supply chain. Leveraging their expertise, they have created a purposebuilt platform for the industry that not only solves some of the sustainability challenges faced by the sector, but has also attracted early interest from the world’s most notable textile mills and apparel brands.”
In addition to enabling unprecedented access to materials across the supply chain, Tengiva also takes a holistic approach to addressing sustainability, which is a significant issue faced by the textiles industry. By centralising and providing structured access to data for textiles manufacturers and apparel brands, Tengiva aims to optimise resource usage, increase transparency across the entire supply chain, and promote better
practices – such as CO2 emissions calculations, material combination recyclability, and recommendations around production processes that lower the environmental impact and reduce chemical usage. This approach to driving sustainability in the textiles industry led to Tengiva attracting interest from Fonds Ecofuel, a leading clean tech fund based in Montreal, and Active Impact Investments, which is Canada's largest climate tech seed fund.
In 2021, Tengiva was among 12 companies in Canada and the U.S. to be selected for the Google for Startups Accelerator: Women Founders. During this time, Tengiva relaunched its proprietary technology, completed beta testing of its platform, and reconfirmed its product-market-fit for both manufacturers and apparel brands. The Tengiva platform is now ready for global commercialisation, which will be a primary focus for the company in 2022.
