BERKELEY, Calif., June 08, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Rhea’s Factory, a biotechnology company developing AI-designed enzymes and integrated processes for plastic circularity, has been named one of ten winners of the 2026 Global Change Award®, the H&M Foundation’s global program for early-stage innovation in the textile industry. Selected from hundreds of applicants worldwide, Rhea’s Factory was recognized for RheaCycle™, a platform that uses machine learning to design enzymes that break down polyester waste into virgin-quality molecular building blocks.
RheaCycle™ combines two innovations: AI-designed enzymes and the integrated process built around them. By designing its enzymes computationally, Rhea’s Factory can explore a much larger design space than conventional methods and identify high-performing candidates in a fraction of the time and cost.
The process runs at mild temperatures with low energy input and returns polyester to virgin-quality building blocks at greater than 99 percent purity, drop-in replacements that re-enter the existing supply chain without process changes. It also processes contaminated and blended materials that make much textile waste hard to recover, with unit economics designed to compete without relying on a sustainability premium.
While the Global Change Award recognizes Rhea’s Factory for its work in textile-to-textile recycling, RheaCycle™ is a feedstock-agnostic platform built on PET and polyester, among the most widely produced synthetic polymers in the world. The same technology that returns textile waste to virgin-quality material also applies to packaging and automotive uses, allowing the company to address a problem that spans multiple industries with a single approach.
Each Global Change Award winner receives a €200,000 grant and a place in the year-long GCA Changemaker Programme, delivered by the H&M Foundation in collaboration with Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The H&M Foundation takes no equity and no intellectual property. This selection places Rhea’s Factory among a global cohort of innovators recognized for their potential to influence the textile value chain.
“At Rhea’s Factory we show up every day for the environment and for the future we want to build, and this recognition tells us we are doing it alongside exactly the right people. Real change in an industry this large comes from many determined teams solving hard problems together, and the Global Change Award puts us in that kind of company,” said Arzu Sandıkçı, co-founder and CEO of Rhea’s Factory. “We are showing that biology, designed with artificial intelligence, can give the world a genuinely circular path, and that the cleanest path can also be the one that makes economic sense.”
To learn more about Rhea’s Factory and the RheaCycle™ platform, visit https://rheasfactory.com/technology. Brands, manufacturers, and material producers exploring polyester and PET recycling can reach the team at hello@rheasfactory.com or https://rheasfactory.com/contact. Follow Rhea’s Factory on LinkedIn for updates.
About Rhea’s Factory
Rhea’s Factory is a Berkeley, California-based biotechnology company creating true circularity through AI-designed enzymes and the integrated processes built around them. Its RheaCycle™ platform breaks down polyester and PET waste into virgin-quality molecular building blocks, ready to become new products across textiles, packaging, and other applications. The company was co-founded by CEO Arzu Sandıkçı and CTO Mert Topçu. Learn more at https://rheasfactory.com.
About the Global Change Award
The Global Change Award is an early-stage innovation program run by the H&M Foundation to support the textile industry in halving its greenhouse gas emissions each decade on the path to net zero by 2050. Each year, ten winners share a grant pool and join a year-long Changemaker Programme delivered with strategic partners Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The H&M Foundation takes no equity and no intellectual property, focusing instead on solutions that can be adopted across the industry. Global Change Award is a registered trademark of the H&M Foundation. Learn more at https://hmfoundation.com/gca.
Media Contact
[Mert Topçu, Cofounder]
Rhea’s Factory, Inc.
mert@rheasfactory.com
rheasfactory.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5c6b63b2-60b7-4a60-8f34-0cf31073cbb9
