Circular Factory and GCNE Successfully Organize CEO & Founders Dinner 2025

For Founders, By Founders

This is the second year this dinner has been organized. The initiative was launched by Circular Factory, founded by Sabine Biesheuvel (co-founder and director of BlueCity) and Lindy Hensen (co-founder of PeelPioneers and Tekkoo). Circular Factory supports entrepreneurs in a critical phase: realizing and scaling their First of a Kind (FOAK) factory. This brings unique challenges, from financing to regulations and technical validation. Part of Circular Factory's activities includes facilitating and nurturing a growing community of practice for these pioneers.

Entrepreneurs in circular and biobased industries often face similar obstacles. Therefore, for this edition, Circular Factory joined forces with Green Chemistry, New Economy, the national platform focused on accelerating the resource transition and stimulating a community of game changers. GCNE helps entrepreneurs in the green chemistry sector overcome challenges by providing tailored support, mentorship, and scaling resources. One of them is the Green Chemistry Accelerator program.

Challenges and Practical Experiences

This year's edition saw nearly 50 founders and CEOs of circular and biobased startups, compared to about 30 participants last year, highlighting the rapid expansion of the community. The main focus? A gathering where entrepreneurs can speak directly, honestly, and to the point about the real challenges of scaling. No pitches, no standard networking event, but a setting where vulnerability and open discussions are central.

Guests enjoyed a four-course dinner, inspiring keynotes from Marissa de Boer and Silvester Bombeeck (SusPhos-SNB JV S&S Fenix), Bas van Wieringen (PeelPioneers), and Petra Beris & Hans Dijkstra (BioBTX), with ample opportunity for engaging conversations with fellow pioneers. Moderator Joop Groen, Community Lead at GCNE and an entrepreneur himself, led the discussions between speakers and the audience.

SusPhos-SNB: Collaborating for Success 

Marissa de Boer, CEO and co-founder of SusPhos, has quickly expanded her startup into a company with a serious impact. SusPhos developed a patented technology to extract phosphate from sewage sludge. The products can be used in the fertilizer and cement industries while eliminating waste streams.

The company already has a successful pilot plant in Leeuwarden and is now preparing for the next step: the construction of the ‘S+S Feniks’ in a joint venture with SNB in Moerdijk. Funding is expected to be secured around Q2 2025. Together with Silvester Bombeeck from SNB, De Boer described the technical, legal, and financial challenges they face. They also shared some key ‘Do’s’ for a successful collaboration:

• Shared goals and complementarity are crucial in partnerships.
• Effective communication prevents misunderstandings, especially with multiple decision-makers.
• Skin in the game: all partners must actively contribute, share knowledge and risks.

PeelPioneers: Solving the Catch-22 of Supply and Demand

The next speaker was Bas van Wieringen, CEO and co-founder of PeelPioneers. PeelPioneers has grown to become Europe's largest citrus peel processing company, upcycling residual streams into valuable raw materials for food, animal feed, and cosmetics. In his talk, Van Wieringen shared five lessons he learned from navigating the classic catch-22 of securing supply contracts: you need contracts to build a factory, but without a factory, you can’t guarantee contracts...

His five lessons:

• Ensure you can repeatedly produce small samples of consistent quality before providing samples to your launch customers
• Focus solely on what is truly unique in your process during the demo phase and outsource non-essential activities to specialized partners.
• Early customer conversations about intent specifications and supply agreements are essential.
• One large customer sounds appealing, but work with multiple, more equal, smaller partners—they will also learn with you.
• Keep an overview of your sales funnel, including why leads stop or drop off in the process, so you have a good sense of how to build your funnel as you scale.

To provide his audience with some perspective, Van Wieringen shared an anecdote about his first customer in 2018, who remains a loyal customer to this day. "In hindsight, that catch-22 was a great learning experience, but at that moment, it was pure stress." The moral of his story? Do not underestimate the importance of early investments in long-term relationships with customers.

BioBTX: De-risking Your Business Case to Secure Funding for Your First Commercial Plant

BioBTX, represented by Petra Beris (CEO Ton Vries was caught in 20 cm of snow up North) and Hans Dijkstra, is also in the critical scaling phase. Their ICCP technology (Integrated Cascading Catalytic Pyrolysis) produces aromatics such as benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX) from waste plastic and biomass. This not only tackles issues of plastic waste but also provides a sustainable source of chemical feedstock.

Having successfully completed the pilot phase and secured a funding round of €80 million, they are set to begin construction of their first industrial plant in Delfzijl by the end of 2025. Petra and Hans emphasized how challenges shift from technology development to financing, permitting, and team building. Their lessons learned:

• Invest early in solid concept development, even if it is costly. A well-founded business case makes a difference when attracting investors.
• Consider not locking down 100% of your production capacity in advance. Selling 50% through off-take agreements allows for flexibility and higher margins.
• Ensure legal support from the beginning. Contracts, permits, and investment agreements must be watertight before scaling up; do not hesitate to hire expertise.
• Technology can take you far, but the right team makes the factory successful. Investors ultimately support people, not just innovations.

Why a Community of Circular Practice

By bringing these entrepreneurs together, GCNE and Circular Factory aim not only to facilitate knowledge exchange but also to strengthen the circular industry as a whole. Founders and CEOs of these startups face the same challenges, whether they are working with circular chemistry, biobased materials, or other sustainable technologies. The CEO & Founders Dinner underscored the immense value of sharing experiences. Which financing models work? How do you navigate regulations and permits? How do you build a strong team for the next growth phase?

"During the dinner, I spoke with colleagues facing the same challenges we do. This gave me great insights into how we can scale better and faster," said Lars Langhout, CEO of NoPalm Ingredients, an alumnus of the Circular Factory program.

"This is a unique event in a pleasant ambiance and atmosphere of openness; it makes it very valuable for the group of frontrunners in green chemistry," noted Joost Pâques, CEO of Paques Biomaterials, a former participant in the Green Chemistry Accelerator.

"GCNE and Circular Factory bring together a strong network of leaders who accelerate the transition; experiences are shared in openness and vulnerability. This is a great event!" – Marc den Hartog, CEO of ChainCraft.

Collaboration as accelerators prevents fragmentation and ensures that founders have efficient access to the right support. The CEO & Founders Dinner is just one of the ways GCNE and Circular Factory support this community, both together and as individual programs. The teams continue to work on structural support, matchmaking, and joint initiatives to accelerate the scaling of circular initiatives. The stories of SusPhos, BioBTX, and PeelPioneers demonstrate that while the challenges are great, collaboration and knowledge sharing are the keys to success.