United Repair Centre to add new repair hub in Paris

Circularity innovator United Repair Centre (URC) is opening a new repair hub in Paris in February 2026, to mark its third location in Europe, alongside Amsterdam and London.

The expansion is being funded by a new investment of 3.2 million euros from a group of impact finance and social entrepreneurship investment companies, including Phitrust and Makesense in France and Belgium, and ROM InWest in the Netherlands, plus early-stage Dutch investors DOEN Ventures and Parrot Eyes. Funding was facilitated by Generous Minds.

The new capital will also enable URC to open two additional European hubs in the next two years, added the company, as well as fund a tech team to further develop the proprietary service platforms used by URC’s customers.

Thami Schweichler, founder and chief executive of United Repair Centre, said in a statement: “When we envisaged bringing together the very best companies in purpose investment, we hoped we would find true partners to share our ethos and ambitions.

“The future of United Repair Centre as a catalyst for systems level change across Europe, driven by technology and repair craft, has been made possible by this dream team of financial innovators. We’re beyond delighted.”

The United Repair Centre Paris will be located in the 13th arrondissement region of the city, in a new, architecturally designed space that already houses a range of circularity and social inclusion organisations. It will house a team of local repair technicians, many of whom come from a refugee background and have been tailors in the past, and handle repairs for leading brands such as Patagonia, Lululemon, Levi’s, Arc’teryx, The North Face and Decathlon.

URC also added that alongside the repair business, there will be a United Repair Academy on site, offering training and a guaranteed job at the end of the course to people who have challenges in gaining employment.

Schweichler added: “France has led the world in instigating bold and ambitious policies to curb the rise of cheap, badly made clothing, so it always made sense for us to bring the United Repair Centre philosophy to Paris.

“And seeing the launch of Shein’s first physical store in the city, we’re getting here just in time to demonstrate the social and environmental impacts of repairing the clothes you already love, rather than buying new things you don’t need.”

URC was founded as a partnership with outdoor brand Patagonia and textile-based social company Makers Unite, with the support of Amsterdam Economic Board. The circularity innovator opened its first location in Amsterdam in 2022, followed by London in 2023, and employs 50 repair technicians.

In 2024, the URC team repaired over 29,000 items for more than 30 brands, and repairs are set to increase by over 100 percent in 2025 as operations continue to scale up.