Circulate Capital, the Singapore-based investment management firm focusing on climate tech and circular economy, announced a follow-on investment in its current portfolio company, Lucro Plastecycle Private Limited.

The additional capital is expected to allow the company to triple its capacity in order to meet the growing demand for its products.

United Nations describes a circular economy as a market that incentivises reusing products, rather than scrapping them and then extracting new resources. In such an economy, all forms of waste, such as clothes, scrap metal and obsolete electronics, are returned to the economy or used more efficiently. This can provide a way to not only protect the environment but use natural resources more wisely, develop new sectors, create jobs and develop new capabilities.

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According to the World Economic Forum, a circular economy offers an alternative that can yield up to $4.5 trillion in economic benefits by 2030.

Many companies and firms have started using either recycled or recyclable resources — from clothes to parts of smartphones — but we still have a long way to go since only 8.6 percent of the world is circular right now.

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Circulate Capital, in partnership with leading global corporations including PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Dow, Danone, Chanel, Unilever, The Coca-Cola Company, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LLC and Mondēlez International, has committed to investing half of its $112 million Circulate Capital Ocean Fund (CCOF I) into India, and today has the largest portfolio dedicated to fighting plastic pollution and advancing the circular economy in the country.

The fund’s activities are complemented by the Circulate Capital Ocean Fund I-B (CCOF I-B), which acts as a companion venture and private equity fund to CCOF I.

Lucro is an Indian company that specialises in recycling difficult-to-manage post-consumer flexible plastic packaging and converting it into granules and high-value end products. The company’s trademark Plast-E-Cycle process sets new standards for the industry and helps to close the loop in plastic usage.

Lucro is the only Indian company able to make customised single compounded granules and end products from waste. With the fresh funding, the company aims to recycle more than 315,000 tonnes of flexibles and rigid plastic waste by 2031 and expand employment and contract opportunities to over 1,000 individuals.

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First Published:Jul 28, 2022 3:08 PM IST