Material sourcing platform Circular secured $5.3 million in a recent funding round — for a total of $10.5 million when combined with its seed round — to expand its database of postconsumer recycled materials and an accompanying platform that streamlines PCR material procurement.
Circular’s online platform is a data-driven tool that helps buyers of recycled plastics find materials “at the right price in a fraction of the time,” according to its website. The company says it vets and connects suppliers with buyers via custom quotes while enabling easier contracting, logistics and emissions measurement. It also uses artificial intelligence to codify records, such as for price, specs, material volume and supplier certifications. Circular, which launched in 2022, reports having more than 9,000 global suppliers.
Circular plans to use the new funding for growth. It intends to enhance its platform’s scale and functionality, add team members, add companies and suppliers, expand internationally and add additional materials — including paper and metals — to the plastic-centric platform. The funding rounds included investments from Maniv, Oxygea and Eclipse.
The company reports that in the third quarter of 2023 it sourced 35,000 tons of postconsumer recycled material with $43 million gross merchandise value. That material was for nine global brands, and Circular said partners saved more than 10% compared with the market price. Plus, Circular said the “vast majority” of PCR prices registered less than virgin material prices, “thus breaking the commonly-held belief that there is always a green premium in PCR.”
While describing Circular’s benefits, founder and CEO Ian Arthurs said in a news release that buyers who transition to recycled materials face challenges with an analog market that is inefficient and not transparent.
“They can’t find the material they need, and if they can find it, it’s too expensive — and if they can afford it, there are often quality or consistency issues,” he said. “Existing relationship-driven systems fail to provide the information necessary for buyers to make fast informed decisions, and on the flip side, suppliers have a hard time being discovered by and getting access to serious buyers. Circular unblocks these common issues using data and technology to help buyers and sellers navigate the global market efficiently.”
Other recent efforts to increase the PCR supply include the Circular Plastics Case Competition, co-hosted by Coca-Cola, to identify innovative solutions to boost the recycled PET supply for packaging. And last year, the U.S. Plastics Pact released a PCR toolkit to help packaging stakeholders better navigate market dynamics, understand material availability and identify purchasers.
Supporting improved PCR market dynamics aligns with USPP participants’ 2025 goal of achieving an average of 30% recycled content or responsibly sourced biobased content in plastic packaging; in 2022, they used an average of 9.4% PCR.
Following USPP’s release of its most recent annual report last month, Emily Tipaldo, executive director, said the PCR target is the one that participants experience the most challenges in achieving, noting that “it’s an area where we hear both a cry on the supply side, as well as a cry on the demand side, and we know that there are a number of things to reconcile in the middle.” USPP supports recycled content mandates to drive PCR demand.
Meanwhile, suppliers describe challenges with customers’ PCR adoption. Lori Carson, new market development manager at rPET manufacturer Phoenix Technologies International, said at October’s Paper and Plastics Recycling Conference that movement toward brands incorporating PCR into their packaging hasn’t occurred as fast as anticipated, and pricing is a challenge. Hannah Martinez, head of sustainability and advocacy for the Americas at PET producer Indorama Ventures, explained at the event that her company has had the capacity to create more recycled content for a while, but it only recently reached capacity when recycled content requirements became a market trend.
Investors stated in the news release that Circular’s platform can help ease these difficulties as well as an overhaul of supply chains and manufacturing processes needed to meet PCR targets.
“In a world where procurement and product teams are expected to reimagine their supply chains almost overnight, Circular is the only single-pane-of-glass solution that can streamline the vendor identification, supplier qualification, specification standardization, quality assurance, and logistics to create consistency of supply, price, and quality to make PCR possible,” said Aidan Madigan-Curtis, a partner at Eclipse.
