13.01.2025
Right before the holidays, the Circular Factory Program participants gathered at Invest-NL’s head office in Amsterdam for the fourth deep dive day—this time focused on Finance. A fitting location, as Invest-NL is not only a program partner but also a key player in impact investing and a financier for startups scaling circular businesses, making their insights especially relevant.
Raising funding is always a challenge, but it’s especially tough for circular entrepreneurs working to scale their production. The landscape for funds focussing on this critical phase is limited, and building factories adds a layer of complexity when balancing risk and return. A strong financial plan and a strategic funding mix are essential – themes that took center stage during the expert sessions.
Key insights from the morning sessions
While the participating startups differ in areas like feedstock sourcing or plant design, when it comes to finance, they all face a shared challenge: finding it. Each participant is working on piecing together a funding mix (‘blended finance’)—subsidies, private investments, and debt—to make their vision a reality.
Collaboration and intervision in the afternoon
After lunch, participants took the opportunity to reflect on their own progress and discussed their Objective Key Results (OKRs) while giving each other feedback and receiving feedback from Bart van den Heuvel, Learning & development manager at Circular Factory. With this they will further develop their OKR roadmap toward the next investment round.
The final Deep dive day will focus on Team & Impact. Stay tuned for the last recap in this series. In the meantime, check out the profiles of the participants and learn more about their stories.
The third edition of the Circular Factory program is made possible thanks to our financial partners: Gemeente Rotterdam, Stichting Ondernemersbelangen Rotterdam, the Rabo Foundation and Invest-NL.
30.01.2025
Last week marked the final deep dive of the Circular Factory Program, focusing on the pillar of Team & Impact. An essential capstone to the deep dive series, in which we explore the human side of scaling—a shift from the technical topics of plant design & technology, feedstock and finance to the personal and team-driven foundations necessary for sustainable growth.
Read more12.12.2024
Process design and technology decisions can make or break your scale-up journey. Last week, Circular Factory Program participants dived deep into the technicalities of optimizing processes while planning for scalability.