Inditex, which owns the Zara, Pull & Bear and Bershka fashoin brands announced the stake in Galy as part of its annual shareholder meeting.

CEO Oscar García Maceiras detailed how Galy has developed innovative technology for growing cotton in a lab from cotton stem cells.

According to Reuters reporting from the event, the size of the stake was not disclosed.

Earlier this year Inditex joined a financing round into Finnish textile waste recycler Infinited Fiber Company.

In January, together with BASF, Inditex announced a “breakthrough” in textile-to-textile recycling with the introduction of loopamid, a nylon material made entirely from textile waste.

Loopamid is reported to have the capability to recycle post-industrial and post-consumer textile waste, including fabric mixtures like PA6 and elastane.

Inditex’s chief sustainability officer Javier Losada emphasised the importance of collaboration in driving innovation and transforming textile waste into a valuable resource. He said: “This project is a first step to move towards a circular solution, as the industry still needs to boost new collecting and recycling capacities in order to close the loop and scale recycling for post-consumer waste.”

Inditex said it strives to have 100% of its textile products made exclusively from materials with a smaller environmental footprint by 2030. The fashion company hopes to incorporate a quarter (25%) of its textile fibres from emerging materials not currently available on an industrial scale, using 40% from traditional recycled materials, and integrating 25% from organic and regenerative fibres.