Circulate Capital announces inaugural investments to help to combat ocean plastic

Circulate Capital, the Singapore-based investment management company focused on advancing the circular economy, today announced that the Circulate Capital Ocean Fund (CCOF), the world’s first investment fund dedicated to the ocean plastic crisis in South and Southeast Asia, has made its inaugural investments in two plastic recycling companies located in India and Indonesia for a total investment of US$6 million.

CCOF’s first investments include companies at the forefront of their industries, specializing in building markets to
collect and recycle local plastic waste into raw materials that can become tradable commodities:

● Lucro Plastecycle Private Limited (Lucro) in Mumbai, India: a homegrown Indian manufacturer that developed an integrated process to collect, sort and recycle difficult-to-manage flexible plastic for its own production of flexible products (such as shrink wrap and films) and to sell as high-quality recycled plastic pellets to manufacturers across the country; and
● PT Tridi Oasis Group (Tridi Oasis) in Jakarta, Indonesia: a female-led, Indonesian company specializing in recycling PET bottles into rPET flakes, which are used to manufacture circular packaging and textiles.

“India and Indonesia have a great opportunity to reduce the amount of plastic waste that leaks into our oceans, by
investing in their highly fragmented waste and recycling industries. We are pleased to announce our first investments
in Lucro and Tridi Oasis today – two businesses at the forefront of plastic recycling, turning local plastic waste into an
opportunity for the benefit of the environment and the communities they work in. On behalf of our partners and
investors – including many of the world’s leading corporations – we all look forward to supporting them as they grow
and scale their businesses for the long term,” said Rob Kaplan, CEO, Circulate Capital.

Circulate Capital invests in and supports start-ups, organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises across the entire plastic value chain, from innovations in material to advanced recycling technologies. It seeks to mobilize catalytic capital into the waste management and recycling industry to prove that investing in this sector is scalable in these countries and can generate competitive returns, while moving to solve the ocean plastic crisis.