🇫🇷 How Fairmat Wants To Redefine Composite Recycling And Conquer The U.S.

In the heart of Nantes, a young French startup is rewriting the rules of materials recycling — and making a global play in the process.

Fairmat, founded in 2020 by Benjamin Saada, is tackling one of the thorniest industrial challenges of our time: How to recycle carbon fiber composites at scale, affordably, and without destroying their performance.

Since its start, Fairmat has raised more than €90 million, filed five patents, opened factories in France and the U.S., and landed early customers in sports, mobility, and electronics. Now it’s eyeing expansion into energy and aerospace.

As the company bids to become one of Europe’s most promising industrial deeptech startups, a big question looms: How far can European green innovation scale beyond Europe?

A Full-Stack Recycling Solution

Fairmat emerged from Saada’s vision to solve a problem that even the aerospace industry had largely given up on: how to recycle carbon fiber composites without pyrolysis (burning) or solvolysis (chemical dissolution). These energy- and chemistry-intensive methods are widespread but fundamentally unsustainable.

Instead of building new materials from scratch, Fairmat gives a second life to one of the most high-performance materials ever created. 

Carbon fiber composites are strong, lightweight, and extremely durable—a holy grail material used in everything from Formula 1 cars to wind turbines and fighter jets. But until now, most of this material has eventually ended up in landfills or incinerators.

“Our ecosystem is a fully-integrated infrastructure that spans the entire value chain — from R&D to design and manufacturing,” Saada explained.

And Fairmat is moving fast. Its French facility in Bouguenais has been operating since early 2023, and a second plant in Salt Lake City, Utah — built in partnership with American advanced composites giant Hexcel — is operational since summer 2024.

A New Generation Of Recycled Material

Fairmat’s product is a composite material made from post-industrial carbon fiber waste. It doesn’t yet have a commercial name, but it’s already found a market. The company’s material rivals aluminum in price and mechanical performance, while being up to twice as light. It’s already used by big-name companies like Decathlon in France in high-performance sports gear, including hockey sticks, skis, padel rackets, and rowing equipment.

Crucially, Fairmat’s material is significantly more circular and sustainable than what it replaces. While most “green” materials still have murky end-of-life pathways, Fairmat’s composite can be recycled again and again.

“When people buy recycled materials, they often assume they’re recyclable. That’s not always the case. But in our case, it really is,” Saada noted.

Beyond sports, the company is now targeting industries where lightweight performance and low carbon impact are non-negotiable: consumer electronics, mobility, and renewable energy.

Robots And A Cold Plasma Process

Fairmat’s breakthrough lies in its proprietary recycling process, which combines advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, and software to transform waste into a clean-loop supply chain.

Where traditional recyclers rely on high heat or corrosive chemicals to strip resins from fibers, Fairmat takes a subtler, more precise approach. Robotic arms, equipped with cameras and sensors, “peel” carbon fiber composites from industrial waste — such as unused prepreg rolls or decommissioned wind blades — and convert them into uniform “chips.” These chips retain both fiber and resin, eliminating the need for harsh processing.

Up to 50,000 chips per hour are processed using software-driven optimization that accounts for the diversity of incoming materials. The chips are then combined with a small quantity (5–15%) of virgin plastic to create new composite sheets.

The company’s cold plasma process, dubbed Infinity Recycling, ensures that the recycled materials retain their mechanical strength while minimizing emissions. According to Fairmat, this process results in ten times less CO₂ than traditional recycling methods and recovers up to 90% of incoming waste.

The company already has supply deals with key industrial players, including Siemens Gamesa for wind turbine blade waste and Hexcel for aerospace-grade carbon fiber prepreg.

Last year, Fairmat was contracted to process 2,900 tonnes of carbon waste — double the volume of the previous year — and has €50 million in annual revenue under contract.

Scaling European Deep Tech

Fairmat’s rise is emblematic of a new wave of European industrial climate startups that are as focused on software, robotics, and AI as they are on sustainability.

Fairmat’s latest €51.5 million round - including €25 million in venture debt from the European Investment Bank - will help the company triple its production capacity, expand automation, and fast-track its commercial rollout in strategic sectors. The goal is to deliver a fully circular composite supply chain by 2027.

The company’s roadmap includes expanding into mobility (where lightweight components can reduce vehicle emissions), electronics (where sustainability pressures are intensifying), and energy (where turbine blade waste is a growing challenge). Fairmat’s ability to offer scalable, low-carbon alternatives gives it a clear edge as manufacturers race to hit net-zero targets.

The market is listening. Fairmat is now in late-stage discussions with several Tier 1 OEMs and aims to deepen its footprint in North America, even as it strengthens its European base. The company also has a presence in Spain and is eying further international markets like Asia.

However, while the company is still based in France, Saada said the U.S. represents the biggest opportunity for the company. Its second factory, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, opened last summer. The site was chosen strategically, in close proximity to partners like Hexcel and key aerospace clients.

“We believe the U.S. will represent 50% of our order book by the end of the year,” Saada said.

At a time when U.S. government policy is turning away from support for climate innovation and green tech startups, Fairmat may serve as an early test case as to whether European startups can seize this opening to become global leaders in a market that is still very much up for grabs.