SuperCircle raised $24 million in a Series A financing round, led by the Boulder-based Foundry Group, a network-driven venture capital firm managing over $3 billion for said network.
Other investors backing the full-stack textile recycling startup include New York-based BBG Ventures—an early-stage “generalist” fund focused on underrepresented founders—as well as Renewal Fund and Elemental Impact, a nonprofit investing platform backing first-of-its-kind (FOAK) and early-stage climate technologies.
The Series A round comes 25 months after securing $7 million in pre-Series A funding, co-led by Radicle Impact and Ulu Ventures. Other investors participating in this November 2023 financing round included Earthshot Ventures, BBG Ventures, Lyra Ventures and Blueprint Ventures.
“Retail needs a turnkey system that flips the script on its waste reckoning: Turning would-be cost centers into revenue streams,” said Nisha Dua, managing partner at BBG Ventures. “SuperCircle has built the digital infrastructure to move the industry beyond incremental fixes and point solutions—enabling an entirely new system at scale.”
SuperCircle said the funding will “propel” the waste management platform’s expansion to accelerate its technology development, bolster its supply chain integrations and grow its reverse logistics footprint.
“In my early career inside major retail supply chains, I saw firsthand how much product was written off or discarded annually,” said Chloe Songer, co-founder and CEO of SuperCircle. “Garnering only pennies on the dollar because there were no better, viable end-of-life pathways.”
In short, the New York-based software platform helps brands and retailers decide what to do with unwanted clothing—spanning returns, damaged goods, dead stock, production scraps and trade-ins—instead of dumping it or, as Songer said, writing it off. When an item enters its system, SuperCircle pulls in a few dozen data points about it; including details like brand, fiber content, condition, resale value, recyclability, location and shipping cost.
Using that data, its algorithm picks the most financially and environmentally “optimal” next step for that specific item: resale, donation, recycling, fiber-to-fiber processing or disposal. Once the decision is made, SuperCircle doesn’t physically process the garment itself—rather, it routes the item to a vetted downstream partner in its network across the U.S. and Canada (resellers, recyclers, donation orgs, etc.) and tracks its journey.
“We built SuperCircle to give retailers a scalable and financially sound system for end-of-life,” Songer said. “Enabling value generation from textiles—long after purchase via consumer trade-in—and drastically reducing supply chain losses on excess, damages and returns: Capturing maximum value from every T-shirt, sneaker, sheet set and handbag produced.”
Brands and retailers can work with SuperCircle to stand up post-consumer recycling programs, Songer previously told Sourcing Journal, though the company can also handle waste directly from brands. Since emerging in 2018, SuperCircle has amassed quite the fashion and home textiles clientele, touting finely developed logistics and technology capabilities and an easy-to-grasp user experience.
It-girl brand Reformation approached SuperCircle in 2021 in hopes of building a textile recycling solution. This led to the RefRecycling program in early 2022, as powered by SuperCircle.
Last February, J.Crew debuted its “Second-Life Swim” program, with SuperCircle handling the logistics and tech for fiber-to-fiber recycling of the collected swimwear. Following a year of internal testing, Parachute took its home linen recycling partnership with SuperCircle live last June, while the platform powering consumer trade-in for textile recycling teamed with Guess to launch the Rag & Bone owner’s “Guess Again” recycling program last October.
Direct-to-consumer healthcare brand Figs partnered with SuperCircle to launch the “Scrubs That Don’t Suck” company’s permanent recycling program earlier this year.
Last April, SuperCircle told Inc. Magazine that the startup has diverted more than two million pounds of textile waste from landfill in just two years, “barely scratching the surface,” the American media company reported. At present, SuperCircle has reportedly saved over six million pounds, now working to “profitably and responsibly” divert over one billion by 2030.
“SuperCircle is giving retailers unprecedented visibility and control at end-of-life—an area historically dominated by opaque, low-value liquidation,” said Foundry partner Jaclyn Hester. The platform is the “new industry standard for waste management infrastructure,” she added, “delivering regulatory readiness, measurable impact and profitable financial outcomes.”
At present, SuperCircle handles the post-consumer and post-industrial end-of-life processes for more than 75 partners, per the platformer, “across nationwide customer trade-in programs and supply chain disposition” that “spans store fleets and distribution centers,” the company said.
