Circular Economy Startup Landscape 2026

IFAT Munich 2026 Which areas of circular economy are attracting the most startup activity in Europe, and which ones are being left behind? Leonhard Teichert, Program Lead at Circular Republic, presents the findings of the Circular Economy Startup Landscape 2026. Bruno Rudnick, Managing Partner at SEF Ventures and host of the startup area at IFAT, adds the investor's view on financing and scaling hardware startups in this space. What you'll hear in this episode: • Where European circular startup activity is concentrated and where the map is almost empty: the sectors that are overcrowded and the ones nobody is building in yet. • What drives corporate adoption of new technology. • What founders building hardware-based circular solutions should know: when to talk to an investor, capital structure, customer sequencing, and how corporates actually make adoption decisions. This is the third episode in the IFAT Special series, recorded live at the IFAT Munich 2026 **People** Bruno Rudnik, Managing Partner, SEF Ventures https://www.linkedin.com/in/brunorudnik/ Leonhard Teichert, Programme Lead, Circular Republic https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonhard-teichert-436a2b16a/ Patrick Hypscher, Circular Business Strategist, PaaS Expert https://www.linkedin.com/in/hypscher/ **About** IFAT is the world’s leading trade fair network for environmental technologies. It focuses on water, wastewater, waste, recycling and circularity, bringing together companies, innovators and industry professionals to present solutions for resource efficiency and sustainable infrastructure. IFAT Munich is the flagship event of that network and the most important meeting place for the sector. It takes place every two years in Munich and showcases technologies and services for water, wastewater, waste and raw materials management, with the 2026 edition featuring around 3,400 exhibitors from about 60 countries. **Further Links** Find the study here: https://bdi.eu/de/specials/industry-spotlight-circular-economy-studie IFAT: https://ifat.de/en/ Circular Republic: https://www.circular-republic.org UnternehmerTUM: https://www.unternehmertum.de SEF Ventures: https://sef.ventures/ **One-page Summary** Sign-up for the Circularity.fm Newsletter and get a summary with the take-aways of this episode. Register here: https://circularity.fm/episode/circular-economy-startup-landscape-2026/