Carbonfact has acquired Berlin-based Vaayu Tech GmbH, merging the two largest carbon-accounting platforms in fashion under a single owner serving more than 300 brands including On, Ganni, The North Face and Ace & Tate. Terms of the deal, announced jointly this week, were not disclosed.

What does the merger mean for brand compliance teams?

The two platforms covered different parts of the carbon-data value chain rather than competing head-to-head. Carbonfact built its core in automating supply-chain data collection and running Life Cycle Assessments. Vaayu focused on integrating with external systems, including retail and resale platforms, and translating results into clear, consumer-facing claims.

A flagship Vaayu deliverable is the cost-per-wear calculator developed for Vestiaire Collective, which converts a garment's price into a per-wear figure. Vaayu analysts also produced for Vinted the comparative impact data between second-hand and new purchases.

Who is selling, and at what scale?

Vaayu was founded in 2020 by Namrata Sandhu, a former director of sustainability at Zalando. The startup raised more than $13 million in growth capital from Flint Capital and The Garage. Carbonfact, founded in 2021, is the buyer. All Vaayu clients will migrate to Carbonfact's Paris-based platform.

Neither side has yet published a migration timeline, pricing adjustments, or staffing decisions for the Berlin office.

Why does the regulatory backdrop matter now?

Both platforms emerged from the EU's product-transparency push. Several measures have since been suspended or delayed under the omnibus directive, which softened parts of the original Brussels package.

The binding deadlines, however, have not moved:

• Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) — required by 2030
• Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) — same horizon
• Digital Product Passport (DPP) — embedded in ESPR, supplier-level traceability

Who pays, and what comes next?

The purchase price remains undisclosed. Carbonfact did not detail its investor base or operating costs in the joint announcement. For brands preparing for EPR and DPP filings, the deal consolidates two software stacks into one — reducing integration cost but concentrating vendor risk in a single supplier.

Category managers will weigh that trade-off against the per-license savings typical of horizontal software consolidation. Brands will also test whether the merged platform can handle higher SKU volumes and the multi-tier supplier mapping that ESPR-grade audits demand. The answer, alongside the per-seat pricing Carbonfact sets for the expanded product, will determine if this deal rewires fashion's carbon-software market or simply rebadges familiar tools under one logo.