Investor Profile: Circulate Capital

Circulate Capital (circulatecapital.com) is a Singapore-based impact investment manager that describes itself as "the leading circular economy investment management firm in high-growth markets." Founded in 2020 by Rob Kaplan (formerly Director of Sustainability at Walmart HQ), it invests exclusively in circular supply chains across South and Southeast Asia — plastics recycling, materials recovery, PET and polyolefin recycling, paper-based packaging alternatives, and e-waste and battery critical-materials recovery.

Funds

Fund I closed at USD 188 million. The Circulate Capital Asia Fund II targets USD 300 million with a first close of USD 220 million, and USD 150 million of Fund II is committed to India. The firm reports having raised USD 500 million since inception in 2020; Asia Fund II targets 16–18 investments, roughly half in India and neighbouring countries. It typically backs SME and family recycling businesses with 10–20-year track records — and it has demonstrated exits, including a full exit from Recykal and partial exits from Lucro and Srichakra.

India portfolio

Verified India investments include Lucro Plastecycle (flexible-plastic packaging recycler; HUL took a 14.3% stake in March 2025; MoU with Dow on recycled PE film), Srichakra Polyplast (food-grade bottle-to-bottle PET recycler supplying Coca-Cola and Pepsi), Recykal (digital waste marketplace; invested December 2020), Dalmia Polypro Industries, Rapidue Tech (exited), Phase Change Solutions and JC Global Refineries — its eighth India investment and the inaugural deployment of Asia Fund II.

Backers

Its corporate LPs read like a who's who of packaging value chains — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Dow, Danone, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Chanel and Mondelez — alongside DFIs IFC, British International Investment, Proparco, the US DFC and the EIB, plus family offices and foundations including Builders Vision, Minderoo and the Rumah Group.

Founder Rob Kaplan built Circulate Capital after running sustainability at Walmart HQ — and the firm's investment lens reflects an operator's eye: it backs SME and family recycling businesses with 10–20-year track records and $20–30M in revenues, the unglamorous middle of the value chain where circular-economy margins actually live. Asia Fund II targets 16–18 investments, roughly half in India and neighbouring countries.

The corporate LP bench is the strategy: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Dow, Danone, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Chanel, Chevron Phillips Chemical and Mondelez sit alongside DFIs IFC, British International Investment, Proparco, the US DFC and the EIB — which is why a Circulate portfolio company like Lucro can sign an MoU with Dow on recycled PE film. An India team including Janavi Papriwal and Saurabh Pareek runs the local pipeline.