Bloom Biotech

From a lab in Antwerp, Bloom Biotech is rewriting the textile rulebook – turning food-grade microalgae (yes, the algae from the ocean!) into carbon-negative textiles. Using their innovative bioprinting technology, they produce leather-like materials on a simpler, affordable and scalable process. The result: materials that look and feel premium while using ~90% fewer resources and emitting ~95% fewer CO2 emissions than animal leather - enabling fashion brands to source circular, ethical and affordable next-generation materials.

An idea that started as a bet between two engineers Pedro Vicente & Aravind Arivazhagan, with the belief that they could build a positive solution for fashion, will soon offer brands the world’s first microalgae leather. With a pilot stage targeted for early 2026, market entry in 2027, and industrial scale by 2029, Bloom Biotech is proving that fashion can be beautiful, circular, and carbon-negative - and that the future of materials is being built in Belgium.

'After many years of scaling up various biotech companies, we were surprised by the lack of biotechnologically engineered materials in the fashion sector. While walking through fashion streets in Antwerp, filled with fast-retail, we wondered if we could develop a solution and start a company for textiles - and we made a bet to make it happen (real story)!

Out of several options to use as feedstock, microalgae was the one that stood out the most due to the following reasons: one of nature’s most eIicient microorganisms, food-grade, plus it naturally produces cellulose (= cotton is 90/95% cellulose), cheap to source, and still unexplored for textile applications.

From a simple lab in Antwerp, we engineered a simple, scalable, and aIordable bioprinting process to produce a leather-like alternatives, with very promising properties, close to carbon neutrality and regulation-ready that brands/textile manufactures could adopt without retooling.'