How AI Is Replacing Cashmere With Sustainable, Waste-Derived Fibers

Cashmere sweaters have become widely available at surprisingly low prices, offering consumers access to a fiber prized for its softness, warmth, and lightweight feel. But behind these bargains is a growing sustainability problem. 

Cashmere comes from the fine undercoat of specific goat breeds, and each goat typically produces only four to six ounces of usable fiber per year through two shearings. As demand has surged and prices have fallen, herders have been pressured to shear animals more frequently, leading to declining fiber quality and environmentally harmful herding practices. According to Sim Gulati, co-founder and CEO of Everbloom, this dynamic has put significant strain on raw material producers and destabilized the traditional cashmere supply chain (TechCrunch).

Rather than attempting to reform herding practices or persuade consumers to pay more for premium cashmere, Everbloom took a different approach. The startup set out to create an alternative material that feels and performs like cashmere without relying on goats at all. Backed by more than $8 million in funding from investors including Hoxton Ventures and SOSV, Everbloom developed a material science AI platform called Braid.AI. The model is designed to fine tune fiber characteristics such as softness, weight, thermal properties, and strength, enabling the creation of textiles that closely replicate cashmere as well as other commonly used fibers like polyester (TechBuzz; TechCrunch).

At the heart of Everbloom’s innovation is keratin, the protein that forms the structural basis of cashmere, wool, feathers, and other animal fibers. Today, the company sources waste materials from across the textile supply chain, including discarded fibers from cashmere and wool farms, textile mills, and down bedding suppliers. Looking ahead, it plans to incorporate feathers from the poultry industry, a massive and largely underutilized waste stream. While these sources may appear different on the surface, they share the same underlying protein structure, allowing Everbloom to treat them as interchangeable building blocks for new fibers (Yahoo Tech).

The manufacturing process is intentionally designed to fit into existing textile infrastructure. Waste fibers are chopped, blended with proprietary compounds, and pushed through a standard plastic extrusion machine to form pellets. These pellets are then processed using spinning machines already common in factories worldwide, equipment that accounts for roughly 80 percent of global fiber production capacity. Crucially, the chemical transformations that reshape keratin into new fibers occur entirely within these two machines. Braid.AI determines the precise formulations and processing conditions needed to achieve specific fiber qualities, allowing manufacturers to adopt the material without investing in new production systems (TechCrunch; TechBuzz).

Everbloom emphasizes that sustainability does not have to come at a premium. The company states that all of its fibers are designed to be biodegradable, including those that function as polyester replacements, and it is currently conducting accelerated testing to validate these claims. Because the process relies on waste rather than virgin materials, the environmental footprint is significantly lower. At the same time, using abundant waste inputs and existing machinery is expected to reduce costs, making the fibers economically attractive to brands and consumers alike. Gulati has been explicit in rejecting the idea of a “sustainable premium,” arguing that widespread adoption depends on delivering both performance and cost advantages throughout the supply chain (TechCrunch; Yahoo Tech).

By combining AI-driven material design with industrial pragmatism, Everbloom is reframing how sustainability can work in fashion. Instead of asking consumers to sacrifice quality or pay more, the company is attempting to make waste-derived fibers the better option on every front. If successful, its approach could not only ease pressure on fragile cashmere supply chains but also demonstrate how artificial intelligence can unlock value from materials once considered disposable, reshaping the economics of the textile industry in the process (TechBuzz).

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Works Cited

“Everbloom Built an AI to Turn Chicken Feathers Into Cashmere.” TechCrunch, 16 Dec. 2025, https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/16/everbloom-built-an-ai-to-turn-chicken-feathers-into-cashmere/.

“Everbloom’s AI Transforms Chicken Feathers Into Luxury Cashmere.” TechBuzz, https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/everbloom-s-ai-transforms-chicken-feathers-into-luxury-cashmere.

“Everbloom Built an AI to Turn Chicken Feathers Into Cashmere.” Yahoo Tech, https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/everbloom-built-ai-turn-chicken-120000913.html.

Barber, Gregory. “An AI Dreamed Up 380,000 New Materials. The Next Challenge Is Making Them.” Wired, 29 Nov. 2023, www.wired.com/story/an-ai-dreamed-up-380000-new-materials-the-next-challenge-is-making-them/.