Avalo using AI to future-proof cotton

Rebecca White grew up in West Texas cotton country, so she understands firsthand how climate stresses and volatile markets threaten the crop. Now, as chief product officer of the agtech startup Avalo, she hopes to help future-proof cotton from seed to field.

Avalo uses machine learning to accelerate what Gregor Mendel once did with peas. Its AI analyzes plant genomes and recommends which plants to crossbreed for desired fiber traits, sometimes even multiple qualities at once. In the process, Avalo says it enhances genetic diversity and helps farmers generate value through low-chemical, regenerative practices.

The pitch to fashion brands and mills: fibers tailored for softness, breathability, dye-readiness and other properties. “When we look at genetics for our seeds, we’re talking to spinners, millers and brands about what is important in the fiber characteristics for them,” White said.

Avalo’s momentum includes hiring Tricia Carey as chief commercial officer in April, a signal of ambitions to commercialize and connect with brands. The veteran of Lenzing, Gap and Levi’s earned industry respect trying to save Renewcell, the Swedish textile recycler reborn as Circulose after its bankruptcy.

White expressed hope for helping farmers stressed by a variety of factors, including the decline of cotton in fashion, capricious weather patterns worsened by climate change and volatile tariff policies. “If we’re not taking care of farmers, then they’re not going to farm anymore,” she said.

Competitors

Avalo raised $11 million in a Series A round in March, part of about $15 million total raised to date. (It also has support from Coca-Cola Ventures for sugar cane genetics.) The amount is modest next to peers in the biotech-for-ag space:

Indigo Ag (Boston) has raised roughly $1.5 billion, including a large 2023 round with Google Ventures participation, to track and monetize regenerative agriculture practices for multiple crops.
Puna Bio (Buenos Aires and San Francisco) makes microbial seed coatings from extremophile organisms to boost yields. Its $25.7 million in funding includes support from the Gates Foundation.
Galy (Boston) cultures cotton and other fibers in bioreactors, backed by $65.9 million in funding, including a Series B raise from Breakthrough Energy Ventures in 2024.

White says Avalo’s focus on using genetics to help farmers maximize yields and build soil health can ultimately complement other technologies such as those of Indigo Ag and Puna Bio.

“It’s great that there are those kinds of initiatives, but it’s still high risk,” said Margaret Bishop, an assistant professor at the New School in New York City. “You’ve got to have the investors and build out the supply chain.”

In the field

Avalo aims to enable sustainable farming practices already familiar to growers in arid regions around Lubbock. Delivering improved fiber quality with plant strains suited to local conditions could help farmers earn more for lower-emission cotton, while also assisting mills and brands to cut Scope 3 supply-chain emissions.

Unlike traditional ag models that sell seeds plus chemical inputs, Avalo’s team wants to work toward a future with fewer herbicides and pesticides, developing varieties with built-in resistance.

Although its seeds start in a lab, Avalo relies on open-air field trials, where bees pollinate plants. “We’re really trying to bring genetic diversity back into the fold, because traditional breeding programs tend to weed diversity out in an attempt to keep things simple and more streamlined,” said Avalo Chief Marketing Officer Nick Schwanz.

The company taps into public seed banks and private collections to study more than 500 cotton varieties. These include both wild and “feral” types, i.e. onetime commercial strains that naturalized over decades.

“The oldest one that we have is from the 1920s,” White said. “We put them all together in various different locations, and we see how they do in those different environments, and that helps us interpret the underlying genetic information.”

Natural and synthetic pressures

In fashion, cotton and polyester have traded places in dominance over the past 60 years. Polyester and other fossil-based synthetics now make up about 59 percent of the global fiber market, while cotton accounts for roughly 19 percent, according to the Textile Exchange 2025 Materials Market Report.

Virgin synthetics generally carry a higher greenhouse-gas footprint, but cotton’s cultivation uses more land and water. Cotton-growing regions in the U.S., India, Brazil and Pakistan face future uncertainty from increased droughts, rains and flooding.

Cotton uses as much as 11 percent of the world’s pesticides, and chemical weed control remains common, harming soil microbomes.

Brand pressure and regenerative shifts

Sustainability advocates argue that retailers and brands must rethink how they work with farmers, supporting transitions to regenerative and climate-resilient cotton. The Sustainable Cotton Challenge led by Textile Exchange has gathered 138 brands, from Levi Strauss to Kering, committed to sourcing certified environmentally responsible cotton by the end of 2025. Yet only about 22 percent of participating brands met that goal by the end of 2024.

Avalo positions itself as the bridge between regenerative farming and brands’ sustainability ambitions, aiming to give both sides a shared language and measurable results.

“Farmers know what happens to their cotton up to the point where it leaves the warehouse,” White said. “They produce it, they harvest it. It goes to a gin, it gets bailed, and then it goes to the warehouse, and then it’s sort of off in the ether for them.”

The opposite is true for the brands, who only tend to see the cotton after it lands at the spinner. “The brands are closer together in a perspective of sustainability with farmers than they think that they are,” she added. “The more that we can bring that understanding together, I think the more successful programs like ours will be.”

“It’s super early to know how much that’s going to speed up the development of new seeds, but really exciting if they can,” said Debra Guo, the cotton and crops lead at the Textile Exchange.

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