Circulate Capital

Founder and CEO Rob Kaplan leads the investment committee, drawing on his prior experience at Closed Loop Partners and a career in structured finance. The investment team operates from Singapore with regional directors in India and Southeast Asia who originate and manage local deals. The firm uses a formal impact measurement framework overseen by Chief Impact Officer Ellen Martin.

The firm relies on deep local networks built through on-the-ground operating partners, waste-picker cooperatives, and municipal relationships in target countries. Unlike auction-based processes, many deals originate through supply-chain mapping that identifies critical bottlenecks in informal collection networks. The firm's corporate limited partners also provide visibility into under-invested segments of their Asian supply chains.

Circulate Capital is neither a family office nor a traditional venture firm. It functions as a dedicated investment manager with a blended-capital structure, raising funds from corporate LPs and development finance institutions. Its vehicles sit between project finance and growth equity, reflecting the capital intensity and long hold periods of waste-infrastructure assets.

Circulate Capital invests directly into operating companies and infrastructure projects rather than committing as a limited partner to other funds. The firm structures bespoke equity and debt transactions tailored to enterprises that often lack formal credit histories but control significant material flows. Direct engagement allows the firm to install operational expertise and governance frameworks absent in the informal sector.

The firm does not invest in waste-to-energy incineration, landfill operations, or unproven chemical recycling technologies lacking commercial scale. Circulate Capital's mandate excludes generalist consumer-tech or software investments unless they provide critical traceability or logistics infrastructure for physical waste recovery. The investment policy explicitly screens out any activity that displaces informal waste collectors without providing alternative livelihoods.