A new report titled “Observing Trends from VC Investment Activities to Material Recycling Fields” from Lux Research states that material recycling innovations received a total funding of $668 million from 2011 through Q1-FY2016, for “circular economy” technologies, capturing 69% share that accounted for 65% of the total 155 deals.
The report also says that waste-to-energy received 16% of the funding, followed by wastewater treatment.
In order to evaluate funding for circular economy-related innovations including material recycling technologies, analysts at Lux referred to Pitchbook data from 2011 to Q1-FY2016.
The analysts found that the US is the leader in the category as it received funding worth $310 million for 84 deals, while Europe got $308 million for 52 deals; the UK led Europe alone received 11 deals worth over $10 million.
The analysts further found waste processing as the leader within the material recycling segment, wherein the category received funding with 48% share and deals with 42% share. Following waste processing, waste collection came in second with an identical share of 36% in both funds and deals.
It was also revealed that waste processing being dominated by material-specific technologies, whereas waste collection had switched from these technologies to software and data analytics.
