Circular

The Vision

In the summer of 2023, we applied to a pitching-competition. At that point, we hadn't even opened the first store, or what we called our ✨physical platform✨. All we had was an idea, a vision, and plenty of optimism.

Here's how we described our plans and vision back then:

Our physical platform, Cirkulær AS, is not currently seeking investors because we expect to be profitable by the end of the year. However, we are planning to develop our own inventory management system, which we will carve out into a new company. Let's call this company Cirkulær X for now. Given the regulatory and sosio-economic landscape in Norway, we anticipate a rise in businesses adopting circular models, especially using consignment sales. Legislative changes (e.g., Brukthandellova) and VAT reforms will likely promote reuse of clothing, furniture, and other goods. These shifts will make circular businesses more viable, driving demand for a flexible, scalable, and easy-to-use inventory management system.

At the time, this vision felt bold. Since then, our understanding has deepened, our goals have expanded, and we've set our sights on global impact.

Why now?

A perfect storm of regulatory, consumer, and technological shifts is propelling the secondhand market into a transformative wave:

Regulations: Policies like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Digital Product Passports (DPP) require producers to manage their products throughout their lifecycle and make data accessible.
Consumer Trends: Secondhand shopping has gone mainstream, driven by eco-conscious consumers.
Retail trends: Brick and mortar is coming back. Even D2C companies are establishing physical presence to create meaningful customer relationships and shopping experiences.
Technology: Advancements in AI helps us automating manual and time consuming tasks tasks, making circular retail scalable.
Internal Efficiency Gains: AI also reduces costs and speeds up the development of scalable B2B SaaS solutions.

Europe has more than 75,000 secondhand stores, contributing to a global resale market worth $265 billion. This is a market that is growing at 12% CAGR. Offline resale accounts for over half of the market, and we are positioning Circular to be the winner in this market.

Our goal is clear: Circular will be the market leader for in-store resale.

Our predictions from 2023: hit or miss?

Cirkulær AS became profitable by the end of 2023. In 2024, Cirkulær won the Innovation of the Year Award at the NCSC Norway Awards. The jury said:

"This innovative and sustainable business model shows strong commercial results and clear impact. The technology and concept deliver an excellent customer experience from start to finish for both sellers and buyers."

Regulatory Progress: The repeal ofBrukthandelloven in mid-2024 marked a major shift in Norway, along with promising signals for reducing VAT for circular businesses.
New Company: As planned, we created a separate company. Not "Cirkulær X" but Circular. It's already attracting significant interest from resellers eager to use our technology, with14 customerssigned up to our waitlist.

What's next for Circular?

We started out bootstrapping Cirkulær to profitability. We built a brand and a user experience that customers love. Throughout the process, we have gained deep knowledge and unique insights into what resale businesses need. We've got great founder-problem-fit. The next couple of months we will test our product market fit hypothesis. We are building Circular, and preparing for extreme growth. We are focused on giving resellers the tools they need to succeed in this growing market.

Over the next couple of months we will announce the launch of our product and our first customer success stories.

Stay tuned.