2023 NextCycle Washington Pitch Showcase Recap
Kane Hall at the University of Washington, in Seattle. The Pitch Showcase was the culmination of NextCycle Washington’s Circular Accelerator program, comprised of 14 teams focused on work in the circular economy. After having received months of business and technical support, mentoring, and planning to accelerate their projects, teams presented at the inaugural Pitch Showcase event.
The event kicked off with guest speaker, Ashima Sukhdev, Circular Economy Policy Advisor for Seattle Public Utilities, who set the stage for what building a circular economy means. Later, keynote speaker Ambika Singh, CEO of Armoire, showcased a successful circular business model for fashion and encouraged a rethink of the ownership of items moving to a focus on a rental and share economy.
Award Categories and Judges
The teams were divided into Upstream and Downstream categories, and presented their pitches to judges as well as potential investors and project partners at the event. Upstream teams presented projects related to preventing waste or improving reuse and repair, while Downstream teams presented projects that improve recycling, organics recovery and material end uses.
Teams competed for cash prizes in four categories: Upstream, Downstream, Community Impact, and People’s Choice. The audience selected the People’s Choice winner while the showcase and community impact awards were awarded based on scoring from a panel of judges. An experienced team of entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders were invited to help judge the Showcase to allocate the prize funds to NextCycle Teams.
The Upstream judges were:
Moji Igun, Founder, Blue Daisi Consulting
Jocelynn Quarrel, CEO, Bold Reuse
Vincent Valentino, Green Economy Strategic Advisor, Seattle Office of Economic Development
Heather Trim, Executive Director Zero Waste Washington
The Downstream judges were:
Rob Duff, Sustainable Business Development Director, Department of Commerce,
McKenna Morrigan, Strategic Advisor, Waste Prevention and Product Stewardship, Seattle Public Utilities,
Ben Nahir, Venture Principal, Elevate Capital
Behnosh Najafi, Founder Circular by Design
Award Winners
Refugee Artisan Initiative (RAI) ended the day with two awards: the Upstream Award, presented by Tina Schaefer from the Washington Department of Ecology Recycling Development Center, and the People’s Choice award, presented by Kamal Patel on behalf of Circular PNW, Rebecca Bear from Seattle Parks Foundation, and Dan Bernard representing Communities of Opportunity. The $11,750 in funds will help support its newest endeavor to keep fire hoses used to combat wildfires out of landfills by repurposing them into marketable products. RAI is a non-profit that employs refugee women artists and uses upcycled textiles to create new products including bags, apparel, pet toys, and more.
Ravel won the Downstream Award, presented by Bryce Hesterman from RRS. The $10,000 in funds will help support its project to create the technology and infrastructure for circular textiles and enable the endless recovery and reuse of textiles. Ravel is working to recycle complex, multi-material textiles into single fiber material to be remanufactured into new textiles.
Restaurant 2 Garden was awarded the $5,000 Community Impact Award, presented by Vincent Valentino with the Seattle Office of Economic Development, for its work in creating a decentralized and hyper-local community composting facility using neighborhood restaurant food waste in Seattle’s Chinatown International District. Restaurant 2 Garden is partnering with the Seattle Parks Foundation to transform an undevelopable lot into its new composting site.
Participating Teams
Participating teams in the upstream pitch included GeerGarage, Just Right Bite, South King Tool Library, Okapi Reusables, Community Gearbox, Redesign Collective, and Refugee Artisan Initiative. Downstream teams included Glacier, Restaurant 2 Garden, Book Hill Group, Birch Biosciences, Glass Packaging Institute/Beverage Industry Glass Recycling, Duwamish Valley Sustainability Association, and Ravel. All team projects contributed to NextCycle Washington’s program purpose of building a more sustainable domestic recycling economy, driving demand for recovered commodities and organics, and creating a circular economic model in the state. Read more about their individual projects in the section below.
Watch the event recap video (see embeded video) and then jump to the NextCycle YouTube channel to watch teams from Cohort 1 pitch their project ideas: Pitch Recordings on YouTube
Get Involved
The NextCycle Washington project is seeking project partners, investors, and prospective team members for its future cohorts. Organizations can explore opportunities and sign up for updates on NextCycle Washington programming at NextCycleWashington.com.