What are the top startups in the circular economy?
In our circular economy deck, you will find everything you need to understand the market
SUMMARY
Redwood Materials is the top circular economy startup today, followed by Vinted and Back Market. Redwood has the deepest operating circular loop, Vinted has the largest consumer reuse engine, and Back Market has proved that refurbishment can work at multibillion-dollar scale.
The market is no longer led by one model. The strongest companies now sit across resale, refurbishment, food-waste prevention, battery recovery, AI sorting and advanced-material recycling, which is why funding alone gives a pretty poor picture of who is actually ahead.
Consumer circularity is already a mainstream business. Vinted handled €10.8 billion of GMV in 2025, while Back Market exceeded $3.5 billion of annual GMV and reached global EBITDA break-even.
Reuse still has an economic advantage over recycling when the product itself can stay useful. Keeping a phone, jacket or appliance in circulation preserves far more embedded value than reducing it immediately to raw materials.
Redwood stands out because it connects several stages that are usually split between different companies. Batteries can be collected, reused in stationary storage, recycled, and turned back into battery materials inside the same industrial system.
The AI-recycling race is splitting in two. AMP is pushing toward fully automated sorting facilities, while Greyparrot is trying to become the data layer that tells recyclers, packaging companies and equipment what is actually moving through the waste stream.
Some smaller companies look unusually strong because they operate in high-value waste streams. FAIRMAT can support attractive economics at far lower tonnage than municipal recycling, while Cyclic Materials can matter strategically even if rare-earth volumes look tiny beside paper, steel or plastics.
Textile recycling is still the least settled part of the ranking. Circ has the clearest near-term commercial integration, Samsara Eco has the most ambitious enzymatic platform, and Syre has the biggest visible demand commitments, but the large factories still have to prove themselves.
Profitability is becoming a more important separator. Vinted, Back Market, Refurbed and Too Good To Go now have evidence that circular behavior can support durable businesses rather than only high-growth environmental narratives.
The next reshuffling will come from industrial execution. If Circ, Samsara Eco, Syre and Cyclic bring their planned facilities online at the promised quality and economics, several of today’s middle-ranked companies could move up very quickly.
The broader pattern is clear: circular economy startups are strongest where they preserve the most value before disposal, or where they can recover materials that are economically or strategically hard to replace. That is why reuse, batteries, electronics and advanced materials dominate the top of the list.
This market map, featured in our circular economy deck, highlights top companies and startups in the circular economy
What does “top circular economy startup” mean here?
For this ranking, the top circular economy startups are the private companies that have already proved one of three things: huge reuse volume, real industrial material recovery, or a closed-loop technology with credible commercial demand.
That definition produces a very different ranking from one based on funding or environmental ambition. Vinted keeps existing products in use through resale. Back Market and Refurbed add refurbishment. Redwood Materials recovers critical minerals and feeds them back into battery supply chains. AMP improves the economics of extracting usable material from waste. Samsara Eco and Circ are trying to make difficult materials recyclable again at the molecular level.
We use “startup” broadly enough to include private scaleups such as Vinted and Back Market. Excluding them once they become successful would make the ranking less useful.
We give the most weight to what already works today. Revenue, GMV, actual tonnes processed, operating plants, recurring customers and qualified materials count heavily. Announced factories and future capacity still count, although we discount them until those plants are running.
That approach puts Redwood Materials first overall. Vinted wins on consumer scale. Back Market leads refurbishment. AMP leads automated sorting. The textile-recycling companies have enormous upside, but much more of their eventual scale still sits in the future.
Why are circular economy startups getting more important right now?
Circular economy startups matter more now because the economic waste is enormous and regulation is finally starting to reward repair, reuse and recyclability in concrete ways.
The latest Circularity Gap Report from Circle Economy and Deloitte puts a striking number on the opportunity. Its 2026 edition estimates that the global economy loses roughly €25.4 trillion of economic value every year through inefficient material use, premature disposal, food and energy losses, and underused assets. That is equivalent to about 31% of global GDP.
The physical picture is equally uncomfortable. The previous global material-flow analysis found that secondary materials accounted for only 6.9% of materials entering the economy. When Circle Economy launched its first report in 2018, the headline circularity figure was 9.1%. Virgin-resource consumption has kept growing faster than secondary-material use.
At the same time, some regulations that companies spent years preparing for are becoming real operating rules. EU right-to-repair requirements started applying recently, giving consumers stronger repair rights and extending legal guarantees when repair is chosen. New EU packaging rules have also started applying, pushing packaging toward greater recyclability, reuse and recovery.
That combination is unusually favorable for startups. The waste problem remains huge, while the cost of ignoring it is increasingly landing on manufacturers, retailers and consumers.
As this chart shows, and as featured in our circular economy deck, search interest in eco-friendly brands has been growing steadily
Which circular economy startups are already genuinely big?
Vinted, Back Market, Too Good To Go, Refurbed and Redwood Materials are already operating at a scale that separates them from most private circular economy companies.
The scale looks different in each business. Vinted measures billions of euros moving through a resale marketplace. Too Good To Go measures meals prevented from becoming waste. Redwood measures batteries and critical minerals physically moving through industrial plants.
There is no useful single metric here. The better question is whether each startup has crossed the threshold where circularity has become a repeatable business at meaningful scale.
| Company | What it circulates | Best current scale indicator | What has already been proved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vinted | Secondhand goods | €10.8B GMV in 2025, up 47% | Mass-market reuse can support a billion-euro revenue company |
| Back Market | Refurbished electronics | More than $3.5B annual GMV, up 32% | Electronics refurbishment can work globally and reach EBITDA break-even |
| Too Good To Go | Surplus food | 157M meals saved in 2025 | Food-waste prevention can become a large recurring consumer behavior |
| Refurbed | Refurbished electronics | More than €3B cumulative GMV | A second major European refurbishment marketplace can scale profitably |
| Redwood Materials | Batteries and critical minerals | More than 20 GWh of batteries received annually | Industrial closed-loop battery recycling already works at serious scale |
Is Redwood Materials the best circular economy startup right now?
Yes. Redwood Materials is the strongest circular economy startup overall right now because it already combines collection, mineral recovery, battery-material production and second-life batteries at industrial scale.
Redwood currently receives more than 20 GWh of lithium-ion batteries annually and says it recovers more than 95% of key materials including lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper. Its Nevada campus produced around 60,000 metric tonnes of critical materials during 2025, and its first South Carolina operations added another 20,000 metric tonnes of annual processing capacity.
The circular loop is also getting deeper. Redwood already works with Toyota, Panasonic, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi and GM across different parts of battery collection, recycling and material supply. GM recently expanded that relationship into what Redwood describes as the first automaker partnership covering the full battery lifecycle.
Redwood Energy adds another layer. EV packs that retain enough useful capacity can go into stationary storage before their minerals are eventually recovered. Redwood deployed a large microgrid for Crusoe and later expanded the project roughly sevenfold after reporting 99.2% microgrid uptime. Rivian has also partnered with Redwood to use second-life batteries around manufacturing operations.
Capital is following the expansion. Redwood closed a $425 million Series E earlier this year, with Google joining existing investors.
Redwood is ahead because it already controls several steps of the loop. Battery collection feeds reuse or recycling, recovered minerals feed domestic material production, and viable packs can spend another life storing electricity first. Very few circular startups control that much of the system today.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest circular economy report.
This chart, featured in our circular economy deck, shows annual venture capital investment in circular economy startups
Is Vinted the strongest circular consumer business today?
Vinted is the strongest circular consumer business today, and by transaction volume it is already much larger than every industrial recycler in this ranking.
Vinted members traded €10.8 billion of goods during 2025, up 47% in one year. Revenue reached €1.1 billion, up 38%, while the group remained profitable with €62 million of net income and €137 million of free cash flow.
The interesting part is the combination of growth and maturity. Vinted already had a huge European footprint, yet GMV still added €3.5 billion in a single year. The company has since completed an €880 million secondary share transaction at an €8 billion valuation and has continued expanding geographically, including a recent launch in Australia.
Vinted's own consumer research also suggests that secondhand shopping is beginning to replace some new purchases rather than simply adding extra consumption. The company reported that 76% of purchases avoided the purchase of a new item and that 88% of buyers check Vinted before buying new. We treat those impact figures as directional because the research was commissioned by Vinted, while the transaction data itself is much harder to argue with.
The strongest evidence is simply how ordinary the behavior has become. More than €10 billion of previously owned goods moved through one private marketplace in a year. Circular consumption at this scale looks increasingly like mainstream commerce.
Who is winning refurbished electronics: Back Market or Refurbed?
Back Market still leads refurbished electronics today, while Refurbed is becoming the first challenger that looks big enough to matter.
Back Market closed 2025 above $3.5 billion of global GMV, up 32% year over year. The company also reached global EBITDA break-even, and its mature French operation reported a 35% EBITDA margin. That is unusually strong evidence that refurbished electronics can become a good marketplace business once enough trust, supply and repeat purchasing have developed.
Its growth is also spreading beyond phones. Laptops, tablets, gaming devices and audio products now contribute more heavily to the marketplace. In the United States, categories outside smartphones account for roughly 40% of GMV.
One very recent piece of data shows how price-sensitive that demand can be. After Apple increased prices on several MacBook and iPad models, Back Market said its refurbished MacBook GMV jumped 43% week over week and iPad GMV rose 32% during the following seven days. MacBook unit sales increased 38%. A single week cannot tell us where the category will end up, but it does show how quickly refurbished supply can capture consumers when the gap with new hardware widens.
Refurbed is smaller but growing very quickly. The company passed €3 billion of cumulative GMV less than twelve months after reaching €2 billion, with annual GMV growth above 40%. It also expanded into twelve additional European markets and had already reached profitability during 2025.
Back Market wins the category today because annual GMV alone exceeds Refurbed's entire historical GMV. Refurbed has nevertheless reached the point where the market clearly supports more than one large profitable platform.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest circular economy report.
This chart, featured in our circular economy deck, shows why Back Market is winning in the circular economy
Has Too Good To Go become more than a leftover-food app?
Yes. Too Good To Go is now a broader food-waste platform, even though Surprise Bags still generate most of the saved-meal volume.
Too Good To Go's 2025 annual report says the company saved 157 million meals across its three main products. Surprise Bags accounted for 127 million of them.
That leaves roughly 30 million meals associated with the company's other products, including Too Good To Go Parcels and its broader platform for food businesses. In other words, close to one-fifth of the company's measured food-saving activity now comes from outside the product that originally made the company famous.
The financial side is improving at the same time. Revenue grew 29% in 2025. EBITDA before special items reached €15.8 million, up 49%, and the EBITDA margin increased to 6.3%. Too Good To Go now operates across 21 markets.
The company is becoming more interesting than a marketplace for discounted bakery bags at closing time. It is gradually building different ways to move excess inventory from food manufacturers, retailers and restaurants toward consumers before that inventory becomes waste.
Who is winning AI recycling: AMP or Greyparrot?
AMP is ahead in physical sorting, while Greyparrot is becoming the more interesting data company in recycling.
AMP has already deployed more than 400 AI systems across North America, Europe and Asia. Its technology had guided the sorting of more than 2.5 million tonnes of recyclables and identified more than 150 billion items by the time it began shifting aggressively toward facility-scale automation.
That shift is the important part. AMP ONE turns the company from a supplier of robotic arms into an operator of highly automated sorting systems. Its current platform is marketed across configurations ranging from relatively small plants to facilities processing hundreds of thousands of tonnes a year, with more than 90% recovery of targeted materials.
Waste Connections is using AMP technology in a next-generation Colorado facility designed for up to 62,000 tonnes of single-stream recycling annually. More recently, Kent County in Michigan selected AMP ONE to recover useful materials directly from mixed municipal waste before the remaining stream reaches its waste-to-energy system.
Greyparrot is attacking a different bottleneck: recycling plants often have surprisingly little continuous data about what is actually moving through them. Greyparrot now has more than 250 Analyzer units active across more than 65 facilities in over 20 countries.
The company analysed 52 billion individual waste objects during 2025 and recently passed one trillion cumulative detections. Greyparrot also raised a fresh $27 million Series B. According to the company, the materials identified across that detection history represent an estimated $2.5 billion of recoverable value.
Greyparrot's newest products push that data beyond the sorting plant. Deepnest lets packaging companies see how their products actually behave after consumers throw them away, while Greyparrot Sync can feed live material data into sorting equipment.
AMP has the stronger position in physical automation today. Greyparrot could become more horizontal if continuous waste data turns into a standard layer across plant operations, packaging design and regulatory reporting.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest circular economy report.
This chart, featured in our circular economy deck, shows annual funding in circular economy startups
Has FAIRMAT actually reached industrial scale?
FAIRMAT has already reached early industrial scale, putting it ahead of many advanced-recycling startups whose largest factories remain on the roadmap.
FAIRMAT works on carbon-fiber composites, a valuable waste stream that is difficult to recycle because strong carbon fibers are embedded inside resins. The company uses a mechanical process designed to preserve useful fiber properties and turn composite waste into new materials.
The commercial numbers are unusually good for a company in this part of the market. According to the European Investment Bank, FAIRMAT has secured around 2,900 tonnes of material annually, double the previous level, and contracted roughly €50 million of annual revenue.
That creates a useful ratio: around €17,000 of contracted annual revenue for every tonne of secured yearly material. The calculation is rough because feedstock and finished-product volumes differ, although it shows why difficult high-value materials can support very different economics from household-plastic recycling.
FAIRMAT also has the right kind of industrial relationships. Airbus, Siemens Gamesa, Hexcel and Syensqo can supply or validate composite material streams, while sporting-goods companies including Salomon and Babolat provide visible finished-product applications.
The company raised €26.6 million of equity alongside €25 million of European Investment Bank venture debt to expand production in France and the United States. We rank FAIRMAT highly because real feedstock and contracted demand are appearing before the company attempts its next jump in capacity.
Is Cyclic Materials the next Redwood for rare earths?
Cyclic Materials is the strongest emerging rare-earth recycling startup we found, although Redwood remains several stages ahead in current industrial scale.
Rare-earth magnets are a very different recycling market from bulk plastics or paper. Permanent magnets inside electric motors, wind turbines, robotics and industrial equipment contain materials such as neodymium and praseodymium that are strategically important and heavily concentrated in Chinese supply chains.
Cyclic Materials raised an oversubscribed $75 million Series C earlier this year to accelerate rare-earth recycling infrastructure in North America and Europe.
Its planned South Carolina campus gives us a useful view of the scale. The initial system is designed to process about 2,000 tonnes of magnet material annually and produce roughly 600 tonnes of recycled mixed rare-earth oxides. A later expansion would triple processing capacity to 6,000 tonnes and oxide production to around 1,800 tonnes.
Those numbers look tiny beside conventional recycling plants until we consider what is inside the material. The expanded oxide output would represent strategically valuable rare-earth supply from products that are currently recycled very poorly.
Cyclic also has a commercial-scale facility ramping in Arizona and R&D operations in Canada. The business remains much younger than Redwood, but rare-earth recycling has enough geopolitical value that Cyclic can become important at volumes that would look insignificant in paper, steel or municipal waste.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest circular economy report.
This chart, featured in our circular economy deck, compares the main business model options for refurbished tech sellers
Which textile recycling startup is actually ahead right now?
Circ currently leads on near-term commercial integration, Samsara Eco has the strongest enzymatic technology platform, and Syre has the biggest visible demand commitments.
Textile recycling remains one of the hardest parts of the circular economy. Blended fabrics are especially difficult because cotton, polyester, nylon, dyes and elastane may all be mixed inside the same garment. Global textile-to-textile scale is still unproven across the leading startups.
Circ has already pushed its recovered materials into recognizable supply chains. Its technology separates polyester and cellulose from polycotton blends, and H&M has sold garments using Circ-derived material. Circ has also built relationships with companies such as Lenzing and Selenis. Its planned Saint-Avold facility in France is designed for roughly 70,000 tonnes of annual capacity, with production targeted for 2028.
Samsara Eco is more technologically ambitious. Its EosEco platform uses AI-designed enzymes to break polymers back into building blocks that can become virgin-equivalent material again. Its Australian facility is operating today, while engineering partner KBR is helping design a 20,000-tonne commercial nylon 6,6 plant for Asia.
Demand around Samsara is getting more concrete. LSKD recently signed a ten-year partnership covering recycled nylon 6,6 from 2028. lululemon has already produced products with Samsara material, and the company's Nylon Materials Collective now reaches more than 260 outdoor brands.
Syre's strength is offtake. Nike has selected Syre as a lead strategic supplier for textile-to-textile recycled polyester, while Target has expanded a relationship expected to enable the use of 70,000 tonnes of circular polyester by 2030. Syre is building large-scale production around those commitments.
We give Circ the narrow lead today because its material has already entered commercial products and its first large plant has a clear industrial path. Samsara could overtake Circ if the 20,000-tonne enzymatic plant performs as designed. Syre could become the volume leader if its huge customer commitments translate cleanly into operating production.
| Startup | Main problem | Strongest evidence today | Big test ahead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Circ | Polyester-cotton blends | Commercial product integration and established fiber partners | Ramp a roughly 70,000 t/year French plant |
| Samsara Eco | Nylon, polyester and mixed synthetics | Operating Australian facility, lululemon products, long-term brand commitments | Prove enzymatic recycling in a 20,000 t/year plant |
| Syre | Polyester textile-to-textile recycling | Nike strategic-supplier agreement and large Target commitment | Convert enormous offtake plans into reliable production |
Is selling something secondhand actually more circular than recycling it?
Usually, yes: keeping a phone, jacket or appliance in use preserves much more of the product's existing value than breaking it back into raw materials.
A functioning smartphone already contains a processor, display, cameras, battery, casing, memory, software-compatible hardware and the energy used to manufacture and assemble all of those components. Back Market and Refurbed try to preserve that whole object.
Once the phone can no longer be economically repaired, material recovery becomes the next useful step. Redwood can recover critical minerals from the battery. Other recyclers can recover metals, plastics or glass.
The same hierarchy applies to clothing. Vinted can give a jacket another owner. Repair can extend the jacket again. Circ becomes relevant once the textile itself needs to become feedstock for something new.
This is one reason our ranking gives substantial credit to Vinted, Back Market and Refurbed. A serious circular economy keeps products working for as long as possible and then recovers the useful materials when product life finally ends.
This chart, featured in our circular economy deck, shows the revenue mix across customer segments in the circular economy
What are the top circular economy startups overall?
Redwood Materials is the top circular economy startup overall today, followed by Vinted and Back Market; the strongest second group is Too Good To Go, Refurbed, AMP, Greyparrot and FAIRMAT.
Redwood takes first place because its circular loop is unusually complete and already industrial. The company receives enormous quantities of batteries, recovers critical minerals, manufactures battery materials and increasingly puts viable packs into second-life energy storage.
Vinted takes second because circular consumer behavior rarely reaches this kind of financial scale. As seen above, its marketplace handled €10.8 billion of GMV in 2025 while remaining profitable, and the company's recent €8 billion secondary valuation shows how far resale has moved from the edges of ecommerce.
Back Market takes third because refurbishment keeps considerably more of an electronic product's original value in circulation than raw-material recovery alone, and global EBITDA break-even removes one of the biggest doubts that followed the company during its earlier hypergrowth years.
Too Good To Go and Refurbed have also crossed the line into scaled, profitable or near-profitable circular consumer businesses. AMP and Greyparrot are our two strongest infrastructure bets: AMP changes how material is physically separated, while Greyparrot makes waste flows measurable at a level that the industry has rarely had before.
FAIRMAT and Cyclic Materials are smaller, yet both work on difficult materials with unusually high economic or strategic value. Samsara Eco, Circ and Syre round out the ranking because textile recycling could become a major industrial category, with the decisive production ramp still ahead.
The market has several kinds of leaders now. Consumer reuse has already reached billions in transaction volume. Refurbishment has proved it can make money. Battery recycling is turning into critical-mineral infrastructure. AI is entering whole recycling plants. Textile and advanced-material recycling are moving toward the stage where commercial factories will finally decide which technologies survive.
| Rank | Startup | Why it ranks here now | What could change the ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Redwood Materials | Deepest operating circular loop across batteries, critical minerals and second-life storage | Execution of its much larger materials and storage expansion |
| 2 | Vinted | By far the largest circular consumer marketplace we found | Expansion beyond European fashion into broader categories and geographies |
| 3 | Back Market | Refurbishment at multibillion-dollar GMV with global EBITDA break-even | Whether US growth can approach the economics already seen in France |
| 4 | Too Good To Go | 157M meals saved in one year with improving profitability | Growth of Parcels and platform products beyond Surprise Bags |
| 5 | Refurbed | More than €3B cumulative GMV, fast expansion and profitability | Closing the annual-scale gap with Back Market |
| 6 | AMP | 400+ AI systems and a move into fully automated recycling facilities | Facility-scale deployments becoming standard across large waste operators |
| 7 | Greyparrot | 250+ active Analyzers, one trillion detections and fresh Series B funding | Waste intelligence becoming a standard operating and compliance layer |
| 8 | FAIRMAT | €50M of contracted annual revenue around difficult composite recycling | Successful expansion into larger mobility, electronics and energy applications |
| 9 | Cyclic Materials | Strongest emerging rare-earth recycling platform | Bringing its large US expansion online and proving output economics |
| 10 | Samsara Eco | Leading enzymatic recycling technology with growing brand commitments | Successful 20,000-tonne commercial nylon plant |
| 11 | Circ | Strong commercial validation for blended-textile recycling | Ramp of the planned French industrial facility |
| 12 | Syre | Exceptional customer demand from major apparel brands | Turning committed demand into large, reliable production |
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest circular economy report.
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis answers the question “What are the top startups in the circular economy?” by breaking a very broad market into comparable analytical dimensions rather than ranking companies by funding, reputation or environmental ambition. We looked at current operating scale, commercial adoption, circular depth, business maturity, industrial execution and future scaling potential.
The evidence changes by business model. For consumer platforms, we focused on GMV, revenue, profitability and repeat usage. For industrial companies, we put more weight on tonnes processed, recovery rates, operating facilities, deployed systems, qualified materials and recurring customers. For emerging recycling technologies, commercial product integration, contracted demand and credible plant execution matter more than a large funding round on its own.
We deliberately gave more weight to what is already working today than to announced capacity. Planned factories, long-term offtake agreements and future expansion still count, but they remain forward-looking until the plants are operating and the material is moving at the promised quality and economics.
We also avoided forcing every company into one common metric. €10.8 billion of resale GMV, 157 million meals saved, more than 20 GWh of batteries received, hundreds of AI sorting systems and thousands of tonnes of advanced materials are different kinds of proof. We assessed each signal within the economics of its own category, then compared the degree of scale and validation it demonstrated.
The final ranking comes from aggregating those dimensions. Redwood Materials ranks first because several recent pieces of evidence point in the same direction: serious feedstock volume, high recovery rates, operating material production, major automotive partnerships and a growing second-life battery business. Vinted and Back Market rank just behind because reuse and refurbishment have already reached very large transaction volumes with real profitability.
For market context and regulation, key sources include Circle Economy’s Circularity Gap Report 2026, the European Commission’s right-to-repair framework, and the European Commission’s new packaging rules.
For company-level operating evidence, we relied heavily on primary or institutional sources including Vinted’s 2025 financial results, Back Market’s 2025 performance update, Too Good To Go’s 2025 impact report, Refurbed’s €3 billion GMV update, Redwood Materials’ materials and recycling data, Redwood’s 2025 operating milestones, and Redwood Energy’s second-life battery update.
For recycling infrastructure and advanced materials, key sources include AMP’s deployment and sorting data, Greyparrot’s Series B and one-trillion-detection milestone, the European Investment Bank on FAIRMAT, Cyclic Materials’ Series C announcement, Circ’s Saint-Avold facility plan, Samsara Eco’s operating facility and commercial-scale expansion, and Syre’s expanded Target partnership.
This chart, featured in our circular economy deck, shows how recommerce marketplace technology has evolved over time
