Circular Economy

Ashoka is one of the world’s leading organizations supporting social entrepreneurs. Founded in 1980, Ashoka pioneered the concept of social entrepreneurship and has built a global network of changemakers working to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Through its flagship Ashoka Fellows program, the organization identifies and supports high-impact entrepreneurs with funding, mentorship, and a powerful global network. Ashoka’s broader mission is to create a world where everyone is a changemaker, embedding social innovation across education, business, and civil society.

Better Ventures is an early-stage impact venture capital firm investing in founders building solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. The firm backs companies across climate, health, circular economy, PropTech, and sustainable consumer sectors, with a focus on scalable technologies that deliver measurable impact. Operating with an “impact + return” philosophy, Better Ventures supports entrepreneurs not just with capital, but with access to a curated network of operators, angels, and advisors. The firm positions founders as the drivers of change, helping them scale companies that generate both financial returns and meaningful environmental and social outcomes.

Beyond Impact is an impact investment firm focused on accelerating the transition to a more sustainable, animal-free economy. Founded in 2017, the firm backs companies developing alternatives to animal-based products across food, materials, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods. The firm’s mission centers on building a “kinder, cleaner, healthier world” by investing in scalable businesses that reduce environmental damage, eliminate animal suffering, and improve human health. Its portfolio targets high-growth sectors such as plant-based foods, alternative proteins, and next-generation biomaterials.

Fashion for Good operates as a platform for collaborative innovation that unites the fashion ecosystem to transform and build a regenerative industry. They focus on fostering collaboration and facilitating connections to bring innovative solutions to the forefront, with particular emphasis on next-generation materials, tier 2 decarbonization, footwear circularity, textile waste, and transparency and traceability. Their mission centers on creating a comprehensive platform that enables innovation scouting, collaborative validation, and commercialization and scaling of sustainable fashion solutions. They operate by continuously tracking emerging innovative solutions, facilitating joint testing between brands, innovators and suppliers to validate performance and impact, and co-creating commercial models that address key scaling barriers. Fashion for Good has established itself as a significant force in the sustainable fashion ecosystem, having scouted over 3,500 innovators and supported 187 of them through their innovation pipeline. Their platform approach has generated substantial impact with over €2.31 billion in capital committed and 421 implementation cases, demonstrating their ability to bridge the gap between innovation and market adoption in the fashion industry.

Regeneration.VC is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage Consumer ClimateTech startups focused on driving the circular economy through sustainable innovation in materials, consumer products, and carbon solutions. The firm specifically targets climate-focused companies that are working to transform unsustainable consumption models and create regenerative value chains. Their mission is to regenerate consumer industry value chains to meet planetary boundaries, recognizing that humanity currently consumes nearly twice what Earth can replenish and that 7 of the 9 planetary boundaries have been transgressed. They operate with a theory of change centered on transforming the "take-make-waste" consumption model that drives climate change and biodiversity loss by investing in solutions that enable circular and regenerative approaches. Regeneration.VC matters in the impact ecosystem because they take a rigorous, data-driven approach to measuring circularity and regenerative impact through their CRISP protocol, developed in partnership with Circle Economy Foundation. The fund brings together a multi-disciplined team of investors, entrepreneurs, scientists, and corporate leaders, with strategic advisor Leonardo DiCaprio, positioning them as a significant player in scaling breakthrough technologies that can deliver outsized net environmental benefits.