The European Investment Fund is backing Infinity Recycling’s Circular Plastics Fund which invests in companies developing advanced technologies for the recycling of plastics.
The European Investment Fund (EIF) has signed a €50m participation in Infinity Recycling’s Circular Plastics Fund, an impact fund that invests in companies developing new processes for the advanced recycling of plastics.
The Circular Plastics Fund has a target size of €150m, a third of which is covered by the EIF’s commitment.
According to Jeroen Kelder, managing partner at Infinity Recycling, despite the fact that the use of recycled commodities in plastics production is on the rise “only a few advanced plastics recycling technologies have been able to achieve commercial scale”. While these technologies are often viable, many companies lack the “specialised financial structuring and business development skills” to scale up.
Kelder added: “We are thrilled by this investment from the EIF, which pushes our Circular Plastics Fund beyond the €105m threshold and empowers us to accelerate circularity in the plastics industry through an impact-driven strategy.”
The EIF’s investment is supported by the InvestEU programme and the European Investment Bank.
EIF chief executive Marjut Falkstedt said: “A lot can be achieved by changing our habits, but innovation is key to finding new ways of dealing with structural plastic use and making sure we use every piece of plastic as many times as possible. With the support of the InvestEU programme, we are very happy to be supporting this kind of innovation.”
Portfolio
The fund achieved a €40m first at the start of 2022, as covered by Impact Investor, with Invest-NL as cornerstone investor. Instead of focusing on traditional (mechanical) recycling techniques, the fund backs businesses offering advanced recycling technologies, including chemical processes that enable the full recycling of end-of-life plastic waste, producing new plastics with virgin-equivalent properties and reintroducing them into the existing value chain.
The fund’s first investment, in May 2022 was in Pryme, a cleantech company behind Europe’s single largest plastic waste advanced recycling project in Rotterdam. Later that year, it also invested in recycling firm Clariter, a Luxembourg-registered company that converts plastic waste for use as inputs in industrial and consumer products.
Earlier this summer, the fund was among a group of investors backing DePoly, a Swiss startup which has developed a universal chemical recycling process that converts plastic waste into raw materials
