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Queen of Raw Among the First to Get Funding From MIT Solve

Queen of Raw, a blockchain and AI-powered platform that pairs buyers and sellers of unused fabrics, is one of three teams that has landed funding via MIT Solve, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology initiative.

Led by cofounder and chief executive officer Stephanie Benedetto, Queen of Raw is the “2019 Circular Economy Solver.” Access Afya, a Kenya-based health-care center that caters to the urban poor, and Kinedu, an app that specializes in video-based, research-supported activities for children under age four, are also receiving funding.

With $120 billion worth of unused fabric stowed away in factories and being burned or buried, Queen of Raw works to make those sustainable materials available to people at any time and from any place. Deadstock and sustainable fabrics can be bought and sold online through its marketplace. Factories, brands and retailers post their unused fabric for resale on the platform so that purchasers can have easy access to new materials at lower price points.

rders can vary from one yard to one million yards. The company claims to have saved more than one billion gallons of water through its efforts. With the global textile market expected to hit $1.23 trillion by 2025, less than 1 percent of material used to make clothing is recycled. Queen of Raw also closed $1.5 million in seed funding Tuesday, an MIT Solve spokesman said.

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Why Cartier Is Excited About These 3 Brilliant Female Startups

Taking an idea and turning it into a full-fledged company is no easy feat, to say the least. Nobody can do it on their own, so access to support (or lack thereof) can make or break a business. That’s why Cartier has set out to assist female entrepreneurs in their quest to make positive impacts on the world via the Cartier Women’s Initiative, which will be awarding over $1 million in funding this year. Cartier just announced the 21 finalists for 2020, and they all have brilliant ideas to share.

Among the 21 finalists are three exceptional women from North America. First up is Stephanie Benedetto of New York City, who “buys and sells unused textiles, via the Queen of Raw marketplace, keeping them out of landfills and making the world a less wasteful place,” per a statement. The fashion industry could certainly use more help in becoming more sustainable, and Benedetto could easily become a driving force.

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Queen of Raw Named to Sustaining Voices 2020 with big brands

The sustainability conversation around textile waste often centers on heaps of consumers’ discarded clothing. But within the supply chain, there are billions of dollars’ worth of unused fabrics, sitting in mills, warehouses and factories, which are typically destined for landfills or incinerators.

New York-based startup Queen of Raw is saving these textiles for new uses through a marketplace that allows sellers and buyers to more easily move materials ranging from Italian wool and leather to cottons and performance fabrics. The increasingly global marketplace allows shoppers to search for materials nearby to their production facilities when possible, cutting back on the environmental impact of shipping textiles with geolocated matchmaking.

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