Matoha FabriTell NIR Textile Fibre Identifier

Matoha Instrumentation Ltd. is a company registered in England, founded by Martin Holicky, Hans Chan and Lieve Vanrusselt, that builds handheld and benchtop material identification devices using infrared sensors and AI. It addresses a key barrier in textile recycling and quality control: fibre composition is often unknown or mislabelled, and lab tests are too slow for sorting lines.

FabriTell uses reflective near-infrared spectroscopy at 1550 to 1950 nm with on-board AI to identify nine pure materials and the 13 most common blends, reporting the percentage of each component in 0.5 to 1 second without sample preparation. It comes in Handheld, Desktop and Bench versions; the Bench model can be mounted on conveyors and connected over RS485, UART or CAN bus. A free app stores results, and subscriptions add cloud reports and API access. Users are textile sorters, recyclers, brands and testing teams.

• NIR spectroscopy: reflective near-infrared sensing at 1550 to 1950 nm with built-in AI identification.
• Material coverage: nine pure materials including cotton, polyester, nylon, elastane, viscose and acrylic plus 13 common blends.
• Three formats: Handheld, Desktop and conveyor-mountable Bench devices.
• Fast readout: results in 1 second on the Handheld and 0.5 seconds on Desktop and Bench.
• Colour-coded sorting: the LED can show a colour per material so workers drop items into matching bins.
• Cloud and API: subscriptions add cloud storage, report export and API access; Bench supports RS485, UART and CAN bus.

Vietnamese garment factories can check composition of cutting waste before selling it to recycled fibre producers. Textile recyclers and used-clothing collectors can grade incoming bales by fibre with handheld devices. Fabric warehouses and QC labs of export brands can verify incoming fabric composition against labels before production.

Identification takes under a second with no sample preparation, so workers can sort textiles piece by piece at line speed. Blend percentages are reported directly, helping recyclers meet feedstock specifications and brands verify labels. Matoha reports more than 700 devices deployed in over 60 countries and over 24 million measurements, and the handheld runs up to about 12 hours per battery.

Textile-to-textile recycling and EU separate textile collection require reliable fibre identification at scale, while care labels are often missing or wrong. Affordable handheld NIR devices let sorters and small recyclers start without a full automated line. In Vietnam, garment factories and emerging recyclers handling offcuts and returned goods need quick ways to verify composition for recycled yarn buyers.

Matoha Instrumentation Ltd. is registered in England and says it has deployed devices since 2018. Other products are PlasTell for plastics and CarpeTell for carpets, launched in November 2025. Supporters include Fashion For Good, Innovate UK, Archipelago Ventures and Cloudberry Ventures; recognitions include the IOP Startup Innovation Award and the Amazon Sustainability Accelerator.