MILAN — YHub is getting quite the endorsement.
Five new high-profile investors have decided to back YHub, a leading group in solutions and technologies for traceability and sustainable transition in the fashion and luxury industry. They are Foro delle Arti, a holding company of Brunello Cucinelli SpA; entrepreneur Matteo Marzotto, president of MinervaHub; Claudio Rovere, founder and chief executive officer of Holding Industriale SpA; venture funds managed by global merchant bank LionTree, and Federico Marchetti, chairman of The Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Fashion Task Force, through property holding Mavis.
Founding partners Francesca Rulli, Massimo Brandellero and Cristian Iobbi will continue to lead YHub and Matteo De Angelis was confirmed as the group’s general manager. While financial details were not disclosed, the capital increase transaction aims to scale up the business model while strengthening the group’s international vocation.
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YHub supports brands and companies in the fashion and luxury sectors in implementing sustainability and traceability projects aimed at measurably reducing the environmental and social impacts of production, through credible, verified and validated data and to also support the construction of digital product passports. YHub now has a team of 65 professionals, supports more than 3,000 companies, works with more than 50 global brands and maps more than 80,000 suppliers in 22 countries.
“We are very pleased to have reached such an agreement, which for us marks a further significant step along the path of what we at Solomeo like to call Human Sustainability,” said Riccardo Stefanelli, CEO and executive board member of Brunello Cucinelli SpA. “We do not view it as a mere investment, but rather as a true support for innovation in the field of traceability; we believe that manufacturing also and above all means taking responsibility for one’s products, how they are created, how they are processed, as well as the working conditions of those who make them. We fully believe in traceability as a tool for sustainability and, above all, as a noble means of cultivating the noble goal of improving precisely the working conditions of the entire production chain.”
YHub comprises consultancy Process Factory, The ID Factory and Ympact.
MinervaHub was established in 2022 to protect a number of Italian manufacturers in the country’s supply chain that help create garments and accessories. Marzotto is a coinvestor, together with San Quirico SpA and Xenon Private Equity. MinervaHub has a portfolio of more than 1,000 clients, of which 20 are among the main luxury brands, and 700-plus employees.
The Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Fashion Task Force is a private-sector coalition aimed at accelerating the transition toward a more sustainable future. The SMI’s Fashion Task Force focuses on sustainable solutions in the global fashion, textile and apparel sectors.
The SMI was launched by then-Prince Charles during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2002. Its Fashion Task Force, which counts other members such as the Aura Blockchain Consortium, Cucinelli, Burberry, Chloé, Gabriela Hearst, Prada, Giorgio Armani, Puig, Moda Operandi and Zalando, is chaired by Marchetti, an entrepreneur and former Yoox Net-a-porter chairman and CEO.
Since its inception in 2021, the Fashion Task Force has been driving tangible projects in multiple areas, which include the launch of the Digital Product Passport at the G20 in Rome, and regenerative agriculture projects in the Himalayas and Apulia, Italy.
