A startup aiming to shift textile waste from a cost center to a cash generator is rapidly gaining momentum. On December 11, SuperCircle announced that it has raised $24 million in Series A funding, led by Foundry, with participation from BBG Ventures, Renewal Fund, and Elemental Impact.
SuperCircle provides a full-stack textile waste management platform for global retailers. The company offers an end-of-life operating system that unifies the handling of returns, damaged goods, unsold inventory, production scraps, and even consumer trade-in items. The platform is designed to optimize both profitability and sustainability across the entire retail value chain.
The company already works with more than 75 brands, including J.Crew, GUESS, Reformation, FIGS, and Parachute Home, operating waste management infrastructure across store networks and distribution centers in the United States and Canada. In addition, SuperCircle powers nationwide consumer trade-in programs for its brand partners.
Tackling $163 Billion in “Hidden Value” Lost Each Year
Globally, an estimated $163 billion worth of unsold inventory is discarded annually. U.S. retailers alone absorb massive losses through returns, processing costs, damaged goods, and unsellable stock. At the same time, over 85% of textiles end up in landfills or incinerators.
SuperCircle addresses this structural inefficiency by providing a digital operating layer that makes waste visible—and valuable. The system is also designed to comply with Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations, which require brands to take accountability for end-of-life processing.
A Digital Twin for Every Textile, Powered by 50+ Data Points
At the heart of SuperCircle’s platform is its AI-powered proprietary sort engine. Each collected textile is assigned a digital twin created from more than 50 item-level data points. The AI then determines the most profitable and environmentally responsible next life for every product, routing items across 50+ reuse and recycling streams.
This includes:
- Unsold or excess inventory
- Returned or damaged products
- Production scraps and offcuts
- Consumer trade-in items across apparel, footwear, accessories, and home & health textiles
By enabling accurate sortation and next-life allocation, retailers can reduce waste handling costs and inventory write-downs while unlocking new revenue opportunities through resale and recycling. The underlying dataset also compounds over time, steadily strengthening the precision and impact of the sortation engine.
“A Next Life for Every T-Shirt, Sneaker, Sheet, and Handbag”
Reflecting on her early career in retail supply chains, Chloe Songer, SuperCircle’s Co-Founder and CEO, describes the origins of the company: “In my early career inside major retail supply chains, I saw firsthand how much product was written off or discarded annually, garnering only pennies on the dollar because there were no better, viable end-of-life pathways. ”
She continues: “We built SuperCircle to give retailers a scalable, financially sound system for end-of-life, enabling value generation from textiles long after purchase via consumer trade-in, and drastically reducing supply chain losses on excess, damages, and returns — capturing maximum value from every t-shirt, sneaker, sheet set, and handbag produced.”
The New Standard for Waste Infrastructure, According to Investors
The company plans to allocate the new capital toward:
- Accelerating technology development
- Expanding supply chain integrations
- Strengthening processing and reverse logistics operations
- Advancing data architecture for regulatory compliance
- Scaling enterprise onboarding
Investors view SuperCircle as a defining force in the future of waste management.
Nisha Dua, Managing Partner at BBG Ventures, commented: “Retail needs a turnkey system that flips the script on its waste reckoning — turning would-be cost centers into revenue streams. SuperCircle has built the digital infrastructure to move the industry beyond incremental fixes and point solutions, enabling an entirely new system at scale.”
Jaclyn Hester, Partner at Foundry, added: “SuperCircle is giving retailers unprecedented visibility and control at end-of-life, an area historically dominated by opaque, low-value liquidation. Their platform is the new industry standard for waste management infrastructure, delivering regulatory readiness, measurable impact, and profitable financial outcomes.”
Toward 1 Billion Textiles Responsibly Diverted by 2030
To date, SuperCircle has diverted more than 6 million textiles from landfills. The company aims to scale this impact dramatically—diverting 1 billion items by 2030, responsibly and profitably.
SuperCircle supports both consumer-facing trade-in solutions and backend collection of production scraps, excess inventory, damaged goods, and returns. Its full-stack model enables retailers to transition toward a circular supply chain, boosting sustainability performance while unlocking new economic efficiencies.
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