Mark Cuban Newest Venture: Tackling The Millions Of Tons Of Textiles Waste

Serial investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban recently took a stake in a company addressing the massive problem of textile waste. Cuban offered to invest $300,000 in Retold Recycling in exchange for a 25% stake. In Retold Recylcying’s video segment for “Shark Tank,” Cuban talks about the benefits of the company’s sustainable approach that can reduce textile waste. 

The Diverse Mark Cuban Portfolio

Cuban is a serial investor and entrepreneur with a keen eye for finding business opportunities. 

His largest windfall came in 1999 when he sold his audio streaming company Broadcast.com to Yahoo! Inc. for $5.7 billion in stock. This capital allowed Cuban to fund various startups and enabled him to purchase the Dallas Mavericks in 2000 for $285 million. The franchise is now worth $2.5 billion. 

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Some of his current investments and companies include:

• Lazy, a platform making it easier to connect digital blockchain wallets and display non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
• Bequest Finance, a provider of decentralized, anonymous blockchain-based wills
• HiccAway, a device company offering a product to eliminate hiccups
• Magnolia Pictures, a successful film distribution company

Cuban operates a number of charitable initiatives. He runs the AI Bootcamp Initiative, which provides artificial intelligence (AI) literacy and training for underserved high school students. He also created the Fallen Patriot Fund, established to provide support to the families of first responders injured or killed in the line of duty. 

A Passion for Sustainability

Retold Recycling’s founders Amelia Trumble and Alan Yeoh hope to see growth resulting from individual and corporate interest in sustainable clothing. In the United States, textile waste is a massive problem, with tons reaching landfills every year.

Landfills and incineration processes as well as trash truck emissions produce greenhouse gasses that impact the climate. Reducing textile waste with recycling can slow the need for new textile production and limit the impacts of waste. Textiles recycling has significant potential, with MarketsandMarkets predicting that the global textile recycling market size will reach $9.4 billion by 2027, up from $6.9 billion in 2022, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4% during the forecast period.

So far, Retold Recycling has kept more than 50 tons of fabric waste out of landfills or incinerators. 

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Diverting Textile Waste from Landfills

Retold Recycling offers consumers an easy way to recycle clothing and fabrics that keeps the materials from landfills. It offers shipping bags that move materials to the company’s processing facility. The Retold Recycling team sorts through the materials to determine the best use for them based on their cost.

 Consumers pay for the bags, but the nominal cost compares favorably to them taking the time to donate their items or find local recycling centers that take textiles. It features an annual or quarterly subscription-based option where members receive bags on a schedule. They also earn Retold Rewards that accumulate and allow the user to redeem them for merchandise from one of the company’s brand partners. 

The shipped textiles enter Retold Recycling’s sorting process that culminates with delivery to thrift stores, downcycling firms, rag companies and manufacturers that use fabrics as filler and for other purposes. 

Textile waste is a massive global problem:

• Americans throw out an estimated 80 pounds of clothing each year.
• About 85% of the textiles discarded in the U.S. end up in landfills or incinerators.

Retold Recycling notes none of the textiles it receives will end up in landfills. Cuban’s investment will help the company realize its ambitious goals, including developing new recycling processes, working with retail partners and improving its technology capabilities. 

For Investors: Want to invest in startups like Mark Cuban? Equity Crowdfunding let’s everyday investors invest in top startups like Blendid, a robotics startup building autonomous kiosks for top brands like Jamba Juice.

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