Impact Investing for a Circular Textile Industry

Future solutions

How can impact investors drive the shift towards a circular textile industry in The Netherlands?

Join us for a deep dive into the intersection of finance and sustainability. In this session, Maud Hartstra from Invest-NL will lead a discussion with key investors and entrepreneurs, exploring how impact investing can fuel the growth of circular textile businesses.

Hear from experts at Oost-NL and VP Capital, who will share their experiences and strategies for incorporating impact into their investment decisions. Esther Smit, Rotterdam Business Woman of the Year 2024 and founder of Oxious, will provide a first-hand account of securing financing for her circular business, discussing the challenges she faced and how her company’s social impact influenced investor decisions.

This session is crucial for understanding how to bridge the gap between the needs of impact-driven entrepreneurs and the financial world. Discover innovative financing models, learn how investors are adapting to support sustainable ventures, and see how collaboration can bring about meaningful change in the textile industry.

Key Takeaways:

• Insights into how impact investors like Oost-NL and VP Capital assess and support circular textile initiatives.
• Real-world examples of financing challenges and successes from entrepreneur Esther Smit of Oxious.
• Strategies for aligning financial instruments with the needs of circular businesses.
• Innovative approaches to funding that drive both profit and positive societal impact.

Speakers:

• Esther Smit, Founder of Oxious Talent Factory. Oxious Talent Factory is a confection atelier for upcycling in Rotterdam, offering solutions for corporate textile waste streams. The concept focuses on the revival of craftsmanship as a crucial part of the circular economy, providing opportunities to people in local communities who were previously dependent on welfare. Esther Smit has been selected as Rotterdam Business Woman of the Year 2024.
  
• Heleen Plante, Team Manager, Capital Energy & Circular, OostNL. OostNL is the regional development agency of the provinces Gelderland and Overijssel. We are increasingly focusing on both the energy transition and the transition to a circular economy, as both are essential for a sustainable society. However, financing or investing in circular propositions still presents many challenges, making private financiers reluctant. The funds that we manage at OostNL on behalf of the provinces of Overijssel, Gelderland, and EZK offer the opportunity to finance this much-needed transition.
  
• Mathijs van der Knaap, Investment Manager at VP Capital. Mathijs is responsible for sourcing and screening new impact opportunities, both in the venture and fund space. He previously worked at Deloitte in various roles, including in the M&A Transaction Services team. VP Capital, a Dutch family office with roots in the textile industry, is an impact investor focused on supporting early-stage innovations in sectors including textiles, to encourage more sustainable (e.g., circular, biobased, and toxicity-free) and socially responsible practices.
  
• Maud Hartstra, Business Development Manager, Biobased & Circular Economy, Invest-NL. Maud joined Invest-NL three years ago to explore how finance can be used as a force for good. From an independent position and in close collaboration with financiers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers, her team’s mission is to solve systemic barriers to make the biobased and circular economy more financeable. In their most recent project on the challenges of developing a circular textile industry, they discovered the misalignment between current financial instruments and entrepreneurs’ needs.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from leaders in impact investing and discover how finance can be a powerful tool for driving sustainability in the textile industry.