The winner of the NEST pitch competition and the TEKO scholarship of 75.000: - was the start-up company RecoMended which offers automated and scalable textile repair solutions. When the jury's votes were tallied, it was clear that RecoMended won the NESTpitch final, which was conducted digitally on 2 June. The win means the company will receive a grant of SEK 75,000 to use to develop its business.
- It's great to support a sustainable company at the beginning of its growth journey. We see great opportunities with the service RecoMended offers and contribute to the system setups needed in the industry," says Cecilia Tall, Secretary General TEKO.
14 companies pitched to a jury consisting of Sandra Roos, KappAhl, Emma Garrote Fredman, Gina Tricot, Stefan Ilkovics, Jonas Larsson, Science Park Borås, Jennie Rosén, Swedish Fashion Council, Magnus Rehn, STING, Cecilia Tall, TEKO and Stefan Diner, Borås INK.
RecoMended consists of Jesper Karlsson, Erik Lindtorp and Rikard Ledin, who founded the company to offer a brand-independent one-stop shop for textile repairs aimed at both private and business customers. This will be made possible by innovative, large-scale and automated repair and refurbishment methods together with attractive ordering and logistics solutions.
- We at RecoMended are humbled to have been awarded first place among so many interesting and talented entries. Our business coach via NEST, Oscar Riby has helped to take our business to a new level and we could never have done it without him. The first step in NEST will be a strong wind in our sails to develop our company and thus take large-scale textile repair into the next generation. Let's go! Jesper Karlsson, Erik Lindtorp and Rikard LedinRecoMended.
The pitch final featured the companies that participated in the NEST Catapult programme during the spring - an intensive programme of business coaching, bootcamps and networking for start-ups and entrepreneurs offering different solutions to help transform the textile and fashion industry to become more sustainable.
- RecoMended is a worthy and important winner for the entire textile industry's ability to transform. Both hardware and software innovation that solves an important problem of life cycle extension of already existing products with a high degree of automation. From a NEST perspective, we sum up this first round of the catapult as very successful. We received more and stronger applications than we had dared to hope for. It was clear at our bootcamp that startups in this sector are missing and can draw enormous value from the community we are building in the textile and fashion industry. Great ideas become great business when like-minded people meet and work together, which is a must if we are to meet our ambitious climate targets. Simon Hjelte, NEST Programme Manager.
In spring 2023, the NEST catapult programme will return. Vinnova will also be involved as a funder, but NEST also aims to forge stronger links with the business community, which will have the chance to challenge entrepreneurs to solve sustainability problems that exist in their businesses today.
- If there is one thing we hope to see more of in the next round in early 2023, it's innovations from outside that enable solutions at the production stage such as energy supply, water treatment and chemicals. But the network built during this round ensures that they will be attracted going forward," says Simon Hjelte, NEST Programme Manager.
Contact:
Stefan Dinér, CEO 070 - 601 76 18 / stefan@boras-ink.se
Sara Kallin, Communications 070 - 430 18 12 / sara@boras-ink.se
NEST - New Entrepreneurship for a Sustainable Textile industry, is a national initiative created by the incubators Borås INK, eXpression Umeå, Sting and xPlot to transform the textile and fashion industry to become more sustainable. The initiative is supported by the Swedish Innovation Agency Vinnova, the Swedish School of Textiles in Borås and the industry association TEKO. By combining our different areas of expertise in tech and textiles, we can together identify and develop growth companies that can contribute with new solutions to the transformation the industry needs to make.
