FiberFlow receives EXIST-Gründungsstipendium to develop its first Prototypes

In October 2024, FiberFlow was awarded the EXIST Gründungsstipendium — a German federal grant that supports early-stage deep-tech startups in turning university research into viable companies. For founders Ludwig and Lena, it marks the starting point: the funding gives them the time and resources to focus solely on building first prototypes and proving that their process actually works.

What the Scholarship Enables

The EXIST Gründungsstipendium is hosted at HTWK Leipzig, where Ludwig and Lena both studied and developed the initial idea for FiberFlow's fiber separation process. The scholarship, covering living costs, project expenses, and coaching for up to one year, gives the two founders the ability to stop working on the side and dedicate themselves fully to the technology for the first time.

The immediate goal is to find out whether the process works in hardware, with real textile waste as input.

The Problem FiberFlow Is Addressing

Post-consumer textile waste is a mixed-fiber problem. Recyclers running chemical, thermo-mechanical, or biological processes need clean, single-fiber input — blended fabric bales degrade yield, clog reactors, and compromise output quality. Sorting at the fiber level is the missing step between textile collection and recycling at scale.

FiberFlow's idea is to separate post-consumer and post-industrial textile waste into single-fiber fractions: polyester, cellulose, polyamide, polypropylene, acrylic, and elastane. Whether that separation can be made to work reliably is what the next months will show.

What Comes Next

Ludwig and Lena will spend the scholarship period building first prototypes and beginning to talk with potential customers — recycling companies that need high-purity fiber fractions as feedstock.

It is early days. But the EXIST grant means FiberFlow can finally find out if the idea holds up.