Danish Retailer Invests $20M in Atlanta Firm on Mission to Automate T-Shirt Production

Danish retailer Bestseller has led a $20 million investment round in an Atlanta-based firm that for years has been on a mission to revolutionize fashion by automating garment production. 

Softwear Automation Inc. introduced its “Sewbots” about a decade ago to solve the stubbornly manual process of sewing clothes, notably t-shirts, which have become a stand-in for the perils of pursuing efficiency through rampant globalization. 

The rise of fast fashion — and growing awareness of its environmental costs — has only underscored the need for economically viable methods of manufacturing closer to home, reducing carbon emissions and boosting supply-chain resilience. 

Softwear’s thesis is that textile manufacturing, often outsourced to countries with the lowest labor costs, can be brought back to the markets where the end product is consumed — a boon for companies like Bestseller that are looking to reduce their environmental footprints. It can also enable on-demand production, instantly matching supply with orders to reduce waste. 

“We believe that Softwear Automation can help address some of the key challenges we face across the industry – from speed and flexibility to reducing the environmental impact of garment production,” Bestseller Chief Financial Officer Thomas Børglum Jensen said in a news release. 

The Series B1 funding, led by Bestseller’s Invest FWD fund, will “expand into new product categories and geographies, strengthen R&D, and scale production capacity to meet growing global demand,” according to the release.

Existing investors CTW Venture Partners, SRI Capital and MacDonald Ventures also participated. The Sewbot technology is currently installed at a site in Austell, Ga. 

“This partnership with Bestseller and the support from Invest FWD are not just a vote of confidence in our technology — they are a powerful catalyst for the future of on-demand and localised apparel manufacturing,” said Palaniswamy “Raj” Rajan, chairman and CEO of Softwear Automation as well as managing partner of CTW Venture Partners. 

See a video of Sewbots in action below: