Many MindedDutch lab-leather startup changes its name and readies a 2027 debut
Qorium, a startup in Maastricht, Netherlands, has renamed itself Reyva. It is industrialising production at the Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus, and the rebrand comes a year after a $25M funding round. Michael Newton is CEO. The founders are sixth-generation tanner Rutger Ploem, entrepreneur Stef Kranendijk and pharmacologist Mark Post, who co-founded Mosa Meat and unveiled the first cultivated meat burger.
The process starts with a biopsy from a living cow. The cells are banked, multiplied, then grown in tissue bioreactors into uniform bovine collagen sheets. Those sheets are tanned and finished at traditional tanneries. End to end this takes about five weeks, with a longer-term goal of three to four. Reyva recently started a 1–2 sq m tissue bioreactor that yields full commercial-size sheets for the first time. It says it needs no special regulatory approval and will follow the rules for conventional leather.
This matters for goods because leather is a high-impact material. A CE Delft life-cycle assessment estimates 10.5kg CO2e per sq m at the tannery gate, against a 77–83kg benchmark for French calf leather. That is 87% lower. Growing uniform sheets from banked cells could also reduce dependence on animal rearing and variable hides, though this brief does not show that effect yet.
Watch for the first product reveals, expected in the first half of 2027 with limited availability. Initial focus is luxury goods and automotive interiors, with development partnerships with unnamed luxury fashion and automotive brands. The caveats are large. The 87% figure is a modelled estimate for full-scale production with renewable electricity in 2029, not a measurement. Newton says current costs are higher than conventional leather, so price competitiveness with high-end leather is a projection. Competitors include Faircraft, BSF Enterprise, ProjectEx and Cultivated Biomaterials.
Source: Green Queen