The Queen of Raw platform that connects buyers and sellers of unused fabrics has won funding from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's MIT Solve initiative.

Queen of Raw works to give new life to the estimated US$120 billion of unused fabric stowed away in factories by making it available to be bought and sold online through its marketplace.

"These materials end up burned or buried. And we're here to rescue them," said the fledgling company in a statement on its website.

It is one of three startups to be the first to benefit from the MIT Solve programme which distributes funding from the Solve Innovation Future venture fund to support entrepreneurs trying to solve the world’s most pressing problems.

Queen of Raw, which also recently announced it had raised US$1.5 million in seed funding, claims to have already saved more than a billion gallons of water through its efforts.

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.

Orders can vary from as little as one yard to as much as one million yards of fabric, according to co-founder and chief executive officer Stephanie Benedetto.

The other two projects to gain support from MIT Solve so far are Access Afya, a Kenya-based health-care centre for the urban poor, and Kinedu, an app that provides video-based, research-supported activities for young children.

Source: EcoTextile News