eBay announced that the company is investing $300,000 into Refiberd in its ongoing efforts to support fashion startups to scale circular solutions through its global Circular Fashion Fund program.
Refiberd was announced the winner of eBay’s Circular Fashion Innovator of the Year Award, which saw 12 shortlisted businesses across the U.K., U.S., Germany and Australia rewarded for their work in pioneering a more circular fashion industry.
This funding is aimed to scale the impact of Refiberd’s cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) system that can discern exactly what different fabrics are made of, allowing them to be accurately sorted and recycled. Their technology can be integrated into existing recycling infrastructures to sort materials and ensure they’re processed using the right methods, helping recyclers turn textile waste into new, usable fibers.
Since the Circular Fashion Fund’s launch in 2022, it has supported 27 businesses and by the end of 2025 will have invested a total of $1.2 million alongside over 200 hours of mentoring from industry experts. In partnership with the fashion industry’s foremost councils—BFC, CFDA, FCG and AFC—eBay gives recipients access and visibility into the industry.
“We’re honored to win eBay’s first Circular Fashion Innovator of the Year Award. The investment from eBay Ventures will help us close a significant round of fundraising for the business, allowing us to expand our technology to new recycling partners, strengthen our AI capabilities, and move faster toward our mission of enabling true textile-to-textile recycling. The journey for a startup is tough, so having the mentorship and access to eBay and the CFDA’s networks has already proven invaluable. With this added support we can accelerate our impact and help build a future where circular fashion is the norm—not the exception,” says Sarika Bajaj, co-founder and CEO of Refiberd.
“As the pioneering secondary marketplace, eBay has been driving circularity in fashion since its inception 30 years ago,” says Alexis Hoopes, vice president and global head of fashion at eBay. “It’s a critical time for the fashion industry, and eBay’s Circular Fashion Fund—and the eBay platform at large—are propelling the industry forward, enabling innovative ideas to help shape brand and consumer behaviors.”
Country finalists included SOJO in the U.K., which makes repairs easy with door-to-door service to keep clothes in use longer; MOOT (Made Out of Trash) in Germany, which offers a comprehensive upcycling plug-in to enable brands to seamlessly integrate scalable upcycling solutions; and Shopfront in Australia, which uses AI to streamline the fashion resale process across multiple marketplaces simplifying the clothing resale process. Finalists each received grants starting at $50,000 in their respective local currencies.
The winners were chosen by a judging panel of industry experts across fashion, academia and sustainability.
Each of the four country finalists went on to a judging process with eBay’s venture capital arm, eBay Ventures, which saw Refiberd crowned as the overall Circular Fashion Innovator of the Year, winning the $300,000 investment prize.
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