Today we’re in the world of fashion, with a company looking to help brands comply with emerging regulations and improve their bottom line in the process. Read on to meet CircKit.

But first:

• Venture Café, the global “innovation ecosystem activator” that recently opened a London location (to a good reception, from what I’ve heard), has announced plans to launch in Manchester later this year in partnership with ARIA and a new innovation district in the city, called Sister. They’re currently recruiting for two roles to run the new location.

• Dealroom has partnered with Lancashire County Council to create a bespoke microsite focused on the county’s high-growth innovation and tech sectors. It’s worth a look to see what’s happening there.

– Martin

CircKit wants to help brands go full circle of sustainability

‘Circular fashion’ is easily thought of as a buzz-phrase used by people who want to market their clothing brands as having green credentials.

But thanks to recent and emerging legislation in the EU, UK, and beyond, sustainability is a serious business concern for many brands these days.

CircKit thinks it has the answer to the admin and process headaches this creates, and having built something to meet the demands of brands, the Manchester-based startup is now coming to market.

Founder Joe Darwen, describes CircKit as “the circular toolkit for fashion footwear and global textiles.”

While the European Commission recently signalled a u-turn away from the planned Green Claims Directive, which would have provided structured anti-greenwashing regulations. As Vogue Business explains:

Other relevant legislation includes taxes on un-recyclable packaging in the UK, as well as bills emerging in various US states.

“The point is, you've now got data verified claims. So you have to explain what ‘sustainably sourced’ or ‘sustainably made’ means. Are there significant reductions in carbon, or water, or energy?” says Darwen.

He adds that circularity in fashion—reclaiming materials for reuse—has business benefits in saving money, as well as complying with legislation.

How it works

CircKit is designed for use by brands, integrating with their existing processes.

Darwen says the software can slot in at the start of the journey for new products, or can ingest historical data from collections and ranges. He says that this can be structured or unstructured data (“even the biggest brands are still on spreadsheets”), and a range of software systems.

The data is then processed with machine learning to figure out relevant factors such as the locations of suppliers, the processes they use, the bill of materials, and much more.

The results of this processing are then served back to users in modules catering to tasks such as legal compliance with EU ecodesign regulations. It can recommend materials for a specific product that will be more sustainable and use less emissions, for example. Darwen says this model accounts for the suitability of the material to the market, not just to regulators.

CircKit can also advise brands on their obligations for a specific product under different regulations around the world.

Darwen says the tech underpinning each part of the software has been custom-built for the use case, and they haven’t used AI for the sake of it, only where it’s relevant and useful:

“With some of the impact formulas, you can just hard-code the maths. So we're not using AI for AI's sake. We've only used it where you get some optimisations to fine-tune a model to the benefit of the platform,” he says.

The story so far

CircKit has its roots in a sustainability-focused marketplace for consumers and brands called Veo, which Darwen led from its beginnings in 2019.

Darwen says he felt he could make more impact earlier in the product lifecycle, and CircKit began as an R&D project within Veo as early as 2020. While interest from brands was lukewarm at first, as sustainability-related legislation began to impact the fashion industry Darwen saw an opportunity to further develop the product to meet the specific needs of brands in this new environment.

The new version of CircKit has been built in the past year. Darwen says some big, well-known brands are currently testing it, ahead of an official launch, planned for August.

In addition to onboarding customers and scaling the business, CircKit plans to adapt its product roadmap based on feedback from initial users, to ensure it fits customer needs as closely as possible.

“We feel we've occupied a gap that's currently really manual, and every brand does it differently, and it just means it's weeks or months of really fragmented working,” Darwen says.

“We've gone for a sticky platform which fits the space.”

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