Circular Factory and GCNE combine forces and organize a successful CEO & Founders Dinner 2025

SusPhos-SNB JV S&S Feniks: Partnering for success—co-siting to navigate permitting and space constraints.

Marissa de Boer, CEO and co-founder of SusPhos, has rapidly built her startup into a company with serious impact. SusPhos developed a patented technology to recover phosphate from sewage sludge. The products can be used in fertilizer- and cement industries, while eliminating waste streams.

The company already operates a successful pilot plant in Leeuwarden and is now preparing for the next step: building the ‘S+S Feniks’ in a joint-venture collaboration with SNB in Moerdijk. Financing is expected to be secured by Q2 2025. Together with Silvester Bombeeck from SNB, De Boer talked about the technical, legal and financial challenges they’ve been facing. They also shared a few important ‘Do’s’ for a successful collaboration:

• Shared goals and complementarity are crucial in partnerships.
• Effective communication prevents misunderstandings, especially with multiple decision-makers.
• Skin in the game: all partners must actively contribute, share knowledge and risks.

PeelPioneers: Solving the demand-supply Catch-22

Next up was Bas van Wieringen, CEO and co-founder of PeelPioneers. PeelPioneers has grown into Europe’s largest citrus peel processing company, upcycling residual streams into valuable raw materials for food, feed, and cosmetics. In his talk, Van Wieringen shared five lessons learned from navigating the classic catch-22 of securing supply agreements: you need contracts to build a factory, but without a factory, you can’t guarantee contracts…

His five lessons: 

• Make sure you can repeatably produce small scale samples with consistent quality before providing samples to your launching customers
• In your activities during the demo phase, focus only on what is truly unique in your process and outsource non-essential operations to specialized partners.
• Early customer discussions about intent specifications and supply agreements are essential.
• One large client sounds attractive, but work with several, more equal, smaller partners – they’ll also learn with you.
• Keep an overview of your sales funnel, also why leads quit or decline in the process, so you can get a good feeling on how to build your funnel while scaling.

To provide his audience with a bit of perspective, Van Wieringen shared an anecdote about his first customer in 2018, who remains a loyal client to this day. “In hindsight, that catch-22 was a great learning experience, but at the time, it was pure stress.” Moral of his story? Don’t underestimate the importance of early investment in long-term customer relationships.

BioBTX: De-risking your business case to secure financing for your first commercial plant

BioBTX, represented by Petra Beris (CEO Ton Vries was caught in 20 cm of snow up north) and Hans Dijkstra, is also in the critical scaling phase. Their ICCP technology (Integrated Cascading Catalytic Pyrolysis) produces aromatics such as benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) from waste plastics and biomass. This not only addresses plastic waste issues but also provides a sustainable source of chemical feedstocks. 

With a successful pilot phase completed and an €80 million funding round secured, construction of their first industrial plant in Delfzijl will begin in late 2025. Petra and Hans highlighted how challenges shift from technology development to financing, permitting and team building. Their lessons learned:

• Invest early in solid concept development, even if it’s costly. A well-founded business case makes all the difference in attracting investors.
• Consider not committing 100% of your production capacity upfront. Selling 50% through offtake agreements allows for flexibility and higher margins.
• Ensure legal support from the start. Contracts, permits, and investment agreements should be airtight before scaling up, don’t hesitate to hire expertise. 
• Technology gets you far, but the right team makes the factory a success. Investors ultimately back people, not just innovations.

Why a community of circular practice 

By bringing these entrepreneurs together, GCNE and Circular Factory not only want to facilitate knowledge exchange but also the strengthening of the circular industry as a whole. Founders and CEO’s of these start ups face the same challenges, whether working with circular chemistry, biobased materials, or other sustainable technologies. The CEO & Founders Dinner underscored the immense value of sharing experiences. What financing models work? How do you navigate regulations and permits? How do you build a strong team for the next growth phase?

“At the dinner, I spoke with peers who are facing or have faced the same challenges as we. As a result, I gained good insights on how we can scale even better and faster,” shared Lars Langhout, CEO of NoPalm Ingredients, an alumnus of the Circular Factory program.

“This is a unique event in an enjoyable ambiance and atmosphere of openness; this makes it very valuable for the group of frontrunners in green chemistry,” remarked Joost Pâques, CEO from Paques Biomaterials, former participant of the Green Chemistry Accelerator. 

“GCNE and Circular Factory bring together a strong network of leaders accelerating the transition, experiences are shared in openness and vulnerability. This is a great event!”  – Marc den Hartog, CEO ChainCraft.

Circular Factory: learning & developing by doing 

Collaborating as accelerators prevents fragmentation, ensuring founders gain efficient access to the right support. The CEO & Founders Dinner is just one of the ways GCNE and Circular Factory support this community, together and as individual programs. The teams continue to work on structural support, matchmaking, and joint initiatives to accelerate the scaling of circular initiatives. The stories of SusPhos, BioBTX and PeelPioneers demonstrate that while the challenges are significant, collaboration and knowledge-sharing are key to success. 

Are you a founder or CEO navigating this phase? Don’t hesitate to contact the Circular Factory team and become part of a community with over 50 pioneers that understands what it takes to build and scale a FOAK factory.

Eager for more insights? Check out the recaps of the Deep-dive days, part of the Circular Factory Program. You can find them in our News section.