Genesis

The genesis of Authentic Material is closely linked to a simple observation: luxury industries generate significant volumes of high-quality natural materials that are little or not valued at the end of production.

The company was founded in Toulouse in 2016 by Vincent Menny, then project manager at Toulouse Tech Transfer. He was quickly joined by Noémie Dumesnil, his sales counterpart at Toulouse Tech Transfer. The initial idea was to transform natural material offcuts into new high value-added materials, intended in particular for the luxury, watchmaking, leather goods, and design sectors.

In its early days, the company mainly worked on valorizing cow horn, a material that was little used despite its aesthetic qualities. Gradually, it expanded its expertise to other sources of natural materials: leather, wood, shell, wool, and even stone.

The real turning point came when the company identified leather as a major issue. Luxury houses generate large quantities of scraps during leather cutting, yet there was no real recycling industry for this material. Authentic Material then developed a technology capable of transforming this waste into new materials while also enhancing sensory qualities.

Over the years, the startup shifted from a primarily R&D-focused model to an industrial approach. Supported by several fundraising rounds and by major luxury players, including CHANEL as an investor from 2022 onwards, it established a pilot plant near Toulouse to industrialize the valorization of recycled natural materials.