Queen of Raw

Queen of Raw operates a business-to-business marketplace where factories, mills, brands and retailers list unused fabric (deadstock) for resale, giving buyers access to existing raw materials at lower price points instead of newly produced textiles. The company frames the problem as a supply/demand mismatch in which roughly $120 billion of unused fabric sits in warehouses globally or is burned or landfilled, while buyers struggle to source material.

Alongside the marketplace, Queen of Raw sells a subscription supply chain product. Its flagship SaaS platform, Materia MX, launched in 2021 and lets brands and retailers manage excess inventory from a centralized system with end-to-end automation and cloud reporting. The software exposes surplus yardage and associated waste (water, chemicals, dollars) as it occurs, alerts the brand so material can be sold immediately without accruing storage fees, and quantifies environmental metrics such as gallons of water saved, pounds of chemicals avoided, tons of CO2 avoided and tons of waste diverted from landfill. In 2023 the company launched a reporting tool that generates insights by applying an algorithm developed with data scientists from MIT's Solve program to customer supply chain data, which clients can use to communicate circularity efforts to shoppers.

The company's website states that Queen of Raw has rebranded, with the same team, and redirects visitors to a new site.

Founding story

Founder Stephanie Benedetto comes from a New York garment-trade family: her great-grandfather emigrated from Austria and settled in New York City's Lower East Side in 1896, locating unused fabrics and repurposing them into garments sold to local customers. Benedetto, a former Wall Street and fashion/media/entertainment lawyer, began mapping the idea after the 2008 market crash while working on a sustainable synthetic leather replacement, where she encountered large volumes of perfectly usable unused material and concluded there was a supply and demand mismatch. Accounts of the start date differ: a Cartier Women's Initiative profile says she founded Queen of Raw in 2014 to bring blockchain to the textile industry, while Benedetto has said the company did not launch until 2018. The name was chosen to convey empowerment ("Queen") and to point at raw materials and the root of the problem rather than the word "sustainability."

Business model

Two-sided B2B model: an online marketplace where sellers list unused fabric and buyers purchase directly from the seller, combined with a monthly subscription service for sellers that maps, measures and traces supply chains to reduce future waste. The company has signed software deals with three of the world's top five apparel and footwear brands. It is a for-profit business with a stated social mission, and pledges a portion of proceeds to aligned not-for-profits.

Marketplace transactions for buying and selling unused textiles plus recurring subscription/SaaS fees for the Materia MX supply chain management software.

Traction

The company reported 650 percent growth in 2022 and, at the time of the Future Planet Capital round, said it had enough capital to reach profitability. It has signed software deals with three of the world's top five apparel and footwear brands. Reported cumulative impact includes more than 1 billion gallons of water saved — described as three years of drinking water for 1.43 million people — over 500 tons of textiles kept out of landfills since launch, and more than $20 million saved for businesses through supply chain efficiency. MIT Solve materials cite over 55,000 users in one section and 100,000 users in another. One client was reported to have saved $14 million in inventory and holding costs in a year and recycled 10 metric tons of excess materials in Asia, keeping 95 percent of that material out of landfills.

Latest developments

Future Planet Capital led a new funding round, with participation from existing board member and investor True Wealth Ventures, citing 650 percent growth in 2022 and marquee Fortune 500 contracts. In 2023 the company launched an MIT Solve-derived reporting tool and announced a partnership with Woolmark. The Queen of Raw website now states the company has rebranded and redirects visitors to a new site under the same team.