Rebecca White grew up in West Texas cotton nation, so she understands firsthand how local weather stresses and risky markets threaten the crop. Now, as chief product officer of the agtech startup Avalo, she hopes to assist future-proof cotton from seed to area.
Avalo makes use of machine studying to speed up what Gregor Mendel as soon as did with peas. Its AI analyzes plant genomes and recommends which crops to crossbreed for desired fiber traits, typically even a number of qualities without delay. Within the course of, Avalo says it enhances genetic range and helps farmers generate worth by way of low-chemical, regenerative practices.
The pitch to style manufacturers and mills: fibers tailor-made for softness, breathability, dye-readiness and different properties. “After we take a look at genetics for our seeds, we’re speaking to spinners, millers and types about what’s vital within the fiber traits for them,” White stated.
Avalo’s momentum consists of hiring Tricia Carey as chief business officer in April, a sign of ambitions to commercialize and join with manufacturers. The veteran of Lenzing, Hole and Levi’s earned business respect attempting to avoid wasting Renewcell, the Swedish textile recycler reborn as Circulose after its chapter.
White expressed hope for serving to farmers harassed by a wide range of components, together with the decline of cotton in style, capricious climate patterns worsened by local weather change and risky tariff insurance policies. “If we’re not caring for farmers, then they’re not going to farm anymore,” she stated.
Rivals
Avalo raised $11 million in a Sequence A spherical in March, a part of about $15 million complete raised up to now. (It additionally has help from Coca-Cola Ventures for sugar cane genetics.) The quantity is modest subsequent to friends within the biotech-for-ag house:
- Indigo Ag (Boston) has raised roughly $1.5 billion, together with a big 2023 spherical with Google Ventures participation, to trace and monetize regenerative agriculture practices for a number of crops.
- Puna Bio (Buenos Aires and San Francisco) makes microbial seed coatings from extremophile organisms to spice up yields. Its $25.7 million in funding consists of help from the Gates Basis.
- Galy (Boston) cultures cotton and different fibers in bioreactors, backed by $65.9 million in funding, together with a Sequence B elevate from Breakthrough Power Ventures in 2024.
White says Avalo’s concentrate on utilizing genetics to assist farmers maximize yields and construct soil well being can finally complement different applied sciences comparable to these of Indigo Ag and Puna Bio.
“It’s nice that there are these sorts of initiatives, however it’s nonetheless excessive danger,” stated Margaret Bishop, an assistant professor on the New Faculty in New York Metropolis. “You’ve received to have the buyers and construct out the availability chain.”
Within the area
Avalo goals to allow sustainable farming practices already acquainted to growers in arid areas round Lubbock. Delivering improved fiber high quality with plant strains suited to native situations may assist farmers earn extra for lower-emission cotton, whereas additionally helping mills and types to chop Scope 3 supply-chain emissions.
In contrast to conventional ag fashions that promote seeds plus chemical inputs, Avalo’s staff needs to work towards a future with fewer herbicides and pesticides, growing varieties with built-in resistance.
Though its seeds begin in a lab, Avalo depends on open-air area trials, the place bees pollinate crops. “We’re actually attempting to convey genetic range again into the fold, as a result of conventional breeding packages are inclined to weed range out in an try to preserve issues easy and extra streamlined,” stated Avalo Chief Advertising and marketing Officer Nick Schwanz.
The corporate faucets into public seed banks and personal collections to review greater than 500 cotton varieties. These embrace each wild and “feral” sorts, i.e. onetime business strains that naturalized over many years.
“The oldest one which now we have is from the Nineteen Twenties,” White stated. “We put all of them collectively in numerous completely different areas, and we see how they do in these completely different environments, and that helps us interpret the underlying genetic info.”
Pure and artificial pressures
In style, cotton and polyester have traded locations in dominance over the previous 60 years. Polyester and different fossil-based synthetics now make up about 59 % of the worldwide fiber market, whereas cotton accounts for roughly 19 %, based on the Textile Change 2025 Supplies Market Report.
Virgin synthetics typically carry a better greenhouse-gas footprint, however cotton’s cultivation makes use of extra land and water. Cotton-growing areas within the U.S., India, Brazil and Pakistan face future uncertainty from elevated droughts, rains and flooding.
Cotton makes use of as a lot as 11 % of the world’s pesticides, and chemical weed management stays widespread, harming soil microbomes.
Model strain and regenerative shifts
Sustainability advocates argue that retailers and types should rethink how they work with farmers, supporting transitions to regenerative and climate-resilient cotton. The Sustainable Cotton Problem led by Textile Change has gathered 138 manufacturers, from Levi Strauss to Kering, dedicated to sourcing licensed environmentally accountable cotton by the tip of 2025. But solely about 22 % of taking part manufacturers met that aim by the tip of 2024.
Avalo positions itself because the bridge between regenerative farming and types’ sustainability ambitions, aiming to present either side a shared language and measurable outcomes.
“Farmers know what occurs to their cotton as much as the purpose the place it leaves the warehouse,” White stated. “They produce it, they harvest it. It goes to a gin, it will get bailed, after which it goes to the warehouse, after which it’s type of off within the ether for them.”
The alternative is true for the manufacturers, who solely are inclined to see the cotton after it lands on the spinner. “The manufacturers are nearer collectively in a perspective of sustainability with farmers than they assume that they’re,” she added. “The extra that we are able to convey that understanding collectively, I believe the extra profitable packages like ours can be.”
“It’s tremendous early to understand how a lot that’s going to hurry up the event of recent seeds, however actually thrilling if they will,” stated Debra Guo, the cotton and crops lead on the Textile Change.
