In the bustling landscape of modern entrepreneurship, where innovation meets investment and ambition sparks growth, one company stands as a beacon of the power of collaboration. Like John Donne proclaimed centuries ago, “No man is an island,” and yet we need partners to help build those bridges and networks.
In the face of a challenge as great as keeping us on the right side of the planetary boundaries, the coming together of the best minds will be essential. Whether it’s tackling the techstyle supply chain challenges or a broken food system, there are many paths to take to reach decarbonisation goals. Whatever path we take, it’s not one we can take alone and knowing what to change, is often the first step.
Let’s take a deeper look at how to help nurture a more collaborative environment, that sets the planet up for success.
Weaving a tapestry of words
Whether growing fungi for materials or recycling fruit pulp for granola, innovation knows no bounds, but the value of their worth largely depends on their network. But it’s more than the network in the world of innovation that matters.
Finding the right partner can unlock extra business growth.
Connections are great, but collaborators are better. That’s not to say, all start-ups should merge and work on the same solution, but to really work together to disrupt the status quo. As John Heywood pointed out in 1546, two heads are better than one.
Let’s see how this plays out in a single, section of the current system. If we take the dye industry as our example, we can see the scale of change needed to be made. Colorifix, working with biological processes to colour textiles, dyes about a tonne a week. If they increased this 1000-fold, they’d still be less than 1% of the dye market. Alone they cannot create the change we need to see at pace. Alternative dyeing solutions exist today, but at an equally small scale. By sharing knowledge, contacts and barriers with each other, both will grow together – in couplets delivered their harmony is shown.
By weaving together the knowledge they’re learning along the way, the start-ups can begin to scale at pace. As Rudyard Kipling points out, “For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.” And whatever role you’re playing in the pack, having partnerships forged with industry players and leaders will only strengthen your position.
Finding the rhythm
In the early days of bringing The Mills Fabrica to the UK, we were an unknown name. My day-to-day was actively outreaching to potential partners to build our community from scratch. Fast forward five years and we have created a supportive community of 1000+, we’re hosting events, participating in global conferences, forming valuable connections and really feel like we’re in the rhythm of driving innovation for the industry and planet.
Now we’re in that rhythm, we’re able to open our doors to household names up to luxury designers for innovators to meet, discuss and present ways to collaborate with them. One key partnership can lead to a whole host of other amazing opportunities and help to accelerate a journey from start-up to scale up. A great example is unspun’s recent milestone partnership with Walmart. The innovator’s first-of-its kind 3D-weaving technology, Vega™, has the potential to solve the apparel industry’s biggest challenges; from eliminating unnecessary waste in the production process, to accelerating lead time from months to days and enabling greater supply chain agility with little to no inventory.
So often, though, it’s the cash injection at the start that’s crucial to get an idea off the ground. High interest rates have prevented a particularly challenging environment for investment – we’ve seen VC investments hit a 6 year low in the US across 2023. However, this is set against a backdrop of start-ups working to address the sustainable development goals becoming more attractive to investors across Europe.
While cash injections are a vital lifeline to businesses at the early stage of their investment journey, finding the right partner can unlock extra business growth. Working in a good rhythm with an investor can help to turbo charge solutions – and they can continue to unlock extra value beyond pure monetary terms. For example, a partner can offer connections to key players in the space – whether its other innovators helping share their challenges, or more established brands for potential orders.
In the symphony of speech, the first note is often the hardest to play. As such, we find immense value in hosting investor days for the exhibitors we have showcasing at Fabrica X, curating panels and events to spark ideas, and opening up our co-working space to offer many opportunities and ways to pen the first verse of any collaboration.
As temperature records continue to be broken, and the effects of climate change impact our daily lives, we can no longer afford to stand on the sidelines and look to others to find the solutions. We need to bring them all into the same room, forging connections to make change happen.
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Amy Tsang spearheads The Mills Fabrica’s UK business and operations, supporting innovators across the textiles/apparel and agrifood tech industries, and building impactful partnerships while growing their community of brands, corporates, VCs, academic institutions and NGOs. Amy also oversees the company’s coworking space in London and curates flagship industry events gathering key ecosystem players and shining the spotlight on startups’ ground-breaking innovations.
