Heaptalk, Jakarta — Singapore-based circular economy investment management firm Circulate Capital, has closed its Circulate Capital Ocean Fund l-B (CCOF I-B), bringing the fund’s total AUM up to US$73 million and the company firm’s total AUM worth US$255 million.
This investment firm will invest in two complementary strategies aimed at handling the plastic pollution crisis and fighting climate change, including:
- Circulate Capital Disrupt (CCD), climate-tech investments in breakthrough innovations that reduce the need for virgin plastics and limit greenhouse gas emissions across the sustainable fashion, biotech, AI, and intelligent materials sectors.
- Circulate Capital Recycling Supply Chains, expecting to transform recycling and waste management supply chains in South and Southeast Asia (SSEA) and scale the highest potential solutions.
Concurrently, the investment firm also secured US$7 million from the UK’s Development Finance Institution (DFI), British International Investment (BII). This achievement marks the firm’s fourth investment from DFI, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and a subsidiary of the French AFD Group, with total commitments from DFIs now reaching US$32 million. This capital injection is expected to catalyze institutional investment into enterprises that develop solutions to combat plastic waste in Asia.
Responding to this achievement, Circulate Capital’s CEO and Founder, Rob Kaplan, delivered, “We are proud to welcome BII to our prestigious list of institutional investors to scale our investments more quickly to address the global plastic pollution crisis and advance the circular economy.
By closing our climate tech fund with the support of prominent partners, including global corporations, family offices, foundations, and four DFIs, Kaplan claimed that this accomplishment signifies the sector is ripe for the capital needed to achieve circularity and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.
Hitherto, Kaplan admitted that the firm has invested in four impressive enterprises at the forefront of climate tech and circular innovation. To overcome the firm will continue to identify and augment innovators in this landscape to our portfolio and the company’s strategy of investing in recycling infrastructure in the SSEA market.
“We are proud to partner with Circulate Capital in South and South East Asia as through funding innovative circulate economy solutions, they have already prevented about 150k tonnes of plastic pollution leakage, reduced or avoided GHG emissions of about 227k tonnes, and managed or recycled a total waste of about 1.2m tonnes. With deep sector capabilities, we look forward to learning alongside Circulate for solutions to addressing the plastic problem, which could be replicated in other emerging markets.” The Managing Director and Head of Asia at BII, Srini Nagarajan, said.
