Ecoalf secures ‘green loan’ of seven million euros from Impact Bridge to boost growth

Madrid – Spanish fashion label Ecoalf secured a seven million euro "green loan" from Spanish fund manager Impact Bridge (IB). The capital will be used by the company, founded and led by Javier Goyeneche, to further boost its growth as a global ‘purpose-driven’ brand focused on promoting and leading the fashion industry's shift towards a more committed and sustainable model.

Founded by Goyeneche in 2012, Ecoalf has been in the hands of London-based investment management firm Treïs since 2017. Fomerly known as Manor Group, Treïs, which owns 65.9 percent of Ecoalf, specialises in executing ‘responsible’ investments in various fields ranging from regenerative agrotechnology to green energy and fashion. Initially, the firm's aim was to boost and support to face Ecoalf's next stage of development and growth. This goal has been successfully validated year after year, and Ecoalf is once again ready to scale, now through the additional financing of seven million euros, which will be injected into its accounts thanks to the "green loan" formalised with socially and environmentally-focused investment firm, IB.

With this objective, the loan granted to Ecoalf will demonstrate how "another textile industry is possible", stated Maria Samoilova, former director of Investment Banking at J.P. Morgan and current managing partner of IB, and manager of its investment fund ‘IB Deuda Impacto España’. Through this investment vehicle, the Spanish fund manager grants loans to ‘purpose-driven’ companies and projects, thus contributing, through financing actions such as the one now formalised with Ecoalf, to financing their objectives and next stages of development. "Ecoalf is not just a sustainable fashion brand," Samoilova noted in a joint statement issued by IB and the fashion label, "it is a platform for change." Changes that "together", she noted, they will work to promote, for the benefit and construction of that other fashion industry, and to the extent that Ecoalf and IB "share a deep purpose, and this alliance seeks to scale that purpose".

"This agreement represents much more than financing," stressed Goyeneche, founder and chief executive officer of Ecoalf, as well as a reference minority shareholder within its share capital. "It is the union of two organisations that believe in a better future and work to build it from their respective fields," argued the founder of the inspiring project that Ecoalf continues to be today. A business venture for which, Goyeneche defended, being able to "count on a partner like IB, who truly understands what impact means, gives us the strength to continue challenging the status quo" that still prevails within the fashion industry.

A ‘green loan’ to boost Ecoalf's new chapter

Beyond its total amount, the loan granted by IB to Ecoalf carries a different series of ‘green clauses’, which will cause the total interest that the fashion firm will have to face for having this new injection of funds to fluctuate, depending on a different series of objectives. These objectives will be linked to different goals and commitments to be achieved in terms of sustainability, environmental protection, or social impact, as part of a complete ‘roadmap’ established between the parties, and ultimately aimed at strengthening Ecoalf's social impact, and the shared ambitions between it and IB to contribute, ‘in a tangible way’, they highlight, to accelerating the move towards ‘a fairer and more sustainable economic model’.

As for the destination of the funds, Ecoalf will allocate the seven million euros, according to economic media outlet Expansión, to refinancing existing debt, as well as to boosting its new stage of growth, both nationally and internationally. A new chapter in its development for which the Spanish fashion firm has already taken the first steps, with the opening, at the end of last week, of a new shop in Biarritz. This new point of sale will allow the fashion firm to continue consolidating its presence in the physical medium and its commercial network, currently made up of more than 14 of its own points of sale and the presence of the firm's collections in more than 1,000 multi-brand points of sale.

With the same objective, and facing this new stage of growth that Ecoalf has now opened up to, after closing its last full financial year of 2024 by increasing sales by 20 percent, to 58 million euros, the company led by Goyeneche maintains a different sum of strategic activations on its list, including openings already planned in markets such as Japan, where Ecoalf already has five shops; or the opening of its first franchised shops in Bolzano (Italy) and Antwerp (Belgium). Initiatives whose implementation will thus be driven by this injection of funds, with which Ecoalf hopes to achieve the growth objectives it has set for the short and medium term, with a view to reaching 2027 with sales worth around 150 million euros.