British designer Stella McCartney has ushered mycelium leather handbags, plant-based faux furs and bioengineered “MicroSilk” dresses down the runway, and is now deepening ties with start-ups behind those materials through a $200mn climate-linked fund that counts LVMH as a backer.

McCartney, a sustainability adviser to LVMH, is a founding investor in the Collab SOS venture capital fund that will be managed by New York-based asset management group Collaborative Fund. Her fashion group is also a customer of companies the fund invests in, providing them with revenue.

Biomaterials companies in the fund with a clear application for fashion include [North Carolina]-based Keel Labs, which has created a seaweed-based yarn that McCartney believes could be a viable vegan alternative to wool.

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