MacroCycle Technologies, a developer of a novel PET & polyester textile waste upcycling technology, announced the close of a $6.5M seed financing round. The round was led by Clean Energy Ventures and Volta Circle, with participation from KDT Ventures and Neotribe Ventures. MacroCycle will use the funding to grow its operations by 50% and scale its pilot plant facilities to develop its upcycled PET & polyester resin with initial customers.
Plastic production and disposal constitute more than 5% of global CO2 emissions. Today, only 15% of the plastics are recycled, while the remainder is disposed of in landfills and waterways or is incinerated. While the industry has attempted to break this cycle, waste contamination and energy intensity remain two major barriers to efficient plastics recycling. Filtering through heterogeneous, contaminated recyclable materials and breaking down components into reusable end products has been too cost-intensive to be commercially adopted as a replacement for fossil fuel-derived plastics.
“Global plastic waste is expected to triple in the next 40 years, and current mechanical and chemical recycling methods are not able to deliver viable solutions to process plastics and textiles waste streams,” said Clean Energy Ventures Managing Partner Temple Fennell. “MacroCycle’s solution to upcycle plastics tackles an increasingly severe waste issue to create an economically and environmentally circular plastics supply chain.”
“MacroCycle’s superior unit economics, energy efficiency, and ability to upcycle low-grade feedstocks gives them a critical competitive advantage in a sector that calls for innovation. The team, its technology and its ambition perfectly encapsulate our mission to back the best founders leading the way in the circular economy and we’re delighted to be supporting MacroCycle as it scales and creates genuine global impact,” says Catia Cesari, Managing Partner of Volta Circle, an investment firm backed by the founders of Indorama Ventures, the global leader in PET production and recycling.
Modern approaches to recycling break down plastic waste into the molecular building blocks of plastic (monomers) or back to fossil fuels. These processes require a significant amount of energy, which limits their competitiveness with fossil fuel-derived plastic production. Without breaking down the plastic, MacroCycle’s breakthrough technology upgrades plastic waste into its previous high-quality “virgin-grade” form. Their innovative chemistry and selective non-toxic reagents afford a simpler process that requires 80% less energy than fossil-based PET production and 50-75% lower capital expenditure than competing chemical or biologic recycling methods.
