Charlotte Lafont: If you're talking to an investor, what I would be very sensitive on is focusing on the product market fit. You know, being very clear on where's the demand today, and to what extent your solution can actually match that demand. What's your view on price and how competitive can you be?
Patrick Hypscher: My name is Patrick Hypscher, and this is Circularity.fm the podcast about understanding, building and managing circular business models. Welcome to VC for Circularity, the Venture Capital perspective on Circular Economy Startups. In the last episode, we listened to Bengt Steinbrecher, Head of Digital Partnerships and Startup Partner at Holcim MAQER Ventures. Bengt talked about corporate venture capital strategy and circularity in the construction industry. Today's episode will be about how funds can integrate impact into their investment strategy and why strong product market fit and alignment with existing value chains are essential for circular startups. But before we start. I have an offer for you. If you want to get the actionable one pager about this conversation, sign up for the Circularity.fm newsletter. You can find it at www circularity fm.
Patrick Hypscher: Having a degree in Finance, she started her career as a CSR Analyst at BNP Paribas. She moved on to Total Energies where she worked as Financial Analyst in the New Ventures M&A team, and as Investment Manager focusing on Impact Investments. In 2021, she joined Ring Capital, where she is a Principal, and active in four startup boards. Welcome Charlotte. Charlotte Lafont: Welcome, Patrick. Thank you for having me today.
Patrick Hypscher: Charlotte, what's a sustainable product or service you use in your private life? Charlotte Lafont: Oh, that's a very good question. So I use a lot uh secondhand platform. And I actually made a personal commitment to not buy any new clothes. So I actually have largely enough clothes I think already. So I actually even I'm not sure I need secondhand, but still, for the few things you still need to get, I'm focusing on secondhand. That's the main commitment I would think of.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Yeah. Wonderful. So, let's, let's stick to the topic of saving resources, which is one of the main topics also of Ring Capital. Can you tell us a bit more about Ring Capital?
Charlotte Lafont: Sure, happy to, to go through what we do at Ring Capital. So we're a team of 25 people, we are working for an investment fund, which is based in Paris but investing across Europe. We have today close to 450 million under management, and our investment case is really to focus on investment uh in vital solutions that are tackling major social or environmental challenges. And we aim, and this is really strong in our DNA, I think. We we aim at really helping entrepreneurs grow, but fostering both the impact and the business performance. So that's really important for us. We're really looking for companies that will have put impact at the core. But that's what, what we do in terms of focus on sectors. It's quite agnostic because as I was just saying, can go from social to environmental challenges, so can actually be quite diverse. And in terms of stages, we have three different vehicles, we are investing today, we have one pre-seed and seed stage fund, tickets would be around 300K for very early stage companies. We'll have also in early stage an venture fund, which is the one I'm working for, which is around 2 million euro in companies that are generating more than 1 million euro in revenues and are accelerating. And then we have a growth stage fund which is investment ticket between 5 to 15 million, in companies that are more mature, and generating basically something above 10 million euro revenues. This is for the funds that are being deployed, we're also raising on a couple of other investment strategies.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Fantastic. That's quite a, a big range. Also when it comes to the stages. Can you tell us a bit more where's your money coming from? And maybe also does it somehow influence your activities?
Charlotte Lafont: Very good question. So our main investors will be of different categories. The first one is very purely institutional investors. So we have people such as the EIF, the European Investment Fund. We also have BPI, the French Public Investment Fund. We also have more financial investors, such as Tikehau Capital (TKO), which is a large French asset manager, one of our anchor investors as well. We have people such as Mirova, BNP Paribas as well. In addition to that, we'll have a couple of corporates that would also be interested in in investing in our firms. We have family offices, which are of great support also to the VC industry. And then the last category would be entrepreneurs. So, former founders, who reallocated part of their profit that they put in funds such as Ring. And they're also playing a key role, not only in, in, of course, investing money in the fund, but also helping us deploying the fund. So they're a great source of new investments, pretty much and very often still much connected to the market and to what's happening. So they're sending us dealflow, they're helping us in the review, and they're also sometimes either co-investing or really supporting the entrepreneurs. If there's any interesting connection that they can make between what they've been doing in the past and what the entrepreneurs we are supporting are looking for.
Patrick Hypscher: And the vehicles you mentioned, are they limited in terms of time or are some of them also evergreen? Just mentioning that because especially in circular economy, sometimes things take longer because yeah, it's hardware based scale.
Charlotte Lafont: Yeah, that's a super interesting question. Today, our funds are all limited. It's quite market practice, so it's 10 years, plus two additional use, optional use that you'll have, which it's quite standard. This is still what is mainly and very often asked by our own investors. So it's a discussion that we're continuously having, I'm sure we're not the only one having it, but it takes a bit of time to change that and for sure for some sectors it makes it a bit difficult. Circular economy is one of them, but you can also think of agriculture for instance. You can think of health tech and, you know, most things take time. So, it's probably not only about, you know, the time you have to invest and then uh, exit your portfolio. It's also about having an ecosystem that can really help take things on, uh, a niche. You come to the end of your vehicle, when you make sure that you have fund that will probably be able to take over. So sometimes it's also about, you know, making the right investment in order to make sure that you'll have people to follow on afterwards when you come to the end of what you can do.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. So let's talk a bit more about impact as this is at the core or it seems to be at the core of Ring Capital. So what role does impact play for Ring Capital?
Charlotte Lafont: Impact will play a key role. We really put it on equal foot as uh, what we, you would do on, you know, the financial analysis and the business analysis. So it's a key part of our investment thesis. It's a key part of our due diligence and a key part of the support that we then will bring to the, to the startup. So the idea is really not to make any compromise, neither on impact nor on business performance. And, and what I was saying as an introduction is we'll look for entrepreneurs that have put impact at the core of their business model. What we wanna reach and what we wanna make sure of is to find people that have a perfect alignment between the, the way they generate revenue and the way they generate impact. And this is important because you, as an impact fund, wanna make sure that investing, you know , when you invest in a company, so you wanna make sure that in case any arbitrage is to be made, the impact will be so important and so core in the value proposition that this won't be a question. And then that will remain over the years. So that's something that is, that is quite important. We also think that it's a good investment strategy because it makes companies more resilient, more resilient to what can happen in terms of, you know, regulation that can be more pushy on certain topics, and the way you can recruit people because then you'll be more attractive on the market for people that are looking to work in companies that have some form of an impact. So there are many things on and many aspects for which we think that it's also a healthy and very interesting investment thesis, having you know, this focus on impact and on financial performance, of course.
Patrick Hypscher: And what is your understanding of impact?
Charlotte Lafont: Yeah, that's we try to have, you know, to follow the lines of what people are doing in that, in that space because you probably can have as many definitions of impact as, as funds you'll find that that are doing impact investing. So there's, there's a whole work which is being done, which is very interesting also by, you know, many organizations on how do you standardize the definition, the methodology. And I think the end game of that is you wanna make sure that this is not, you know, becoming a burden for the entrepreneurs, in terms of reporting and things that they'll have to justify and explain. So we need to work on that. And, and just a few words on that, because, you know, there are many organizations that are already working on that. But with with our funds, we started an initiative called United for Impact. So if any of the funds is, is are listening to this conversation, I think you might wanna check what we're doing. So we initiated that organization and group of funds, now it's close to 55 funds on the European team that joined the initiative. And we're discussing about impact to try and have a common ground on how do you set the impact KPIs, how do you monitor the performance, how you report on the performance, and, and you know, the idea is to work collectively on that. It's quite open and interesting discussion, so we welcome everybody to, to join that. And quite flexible and agile also because, you know, I think in less than two years, we already had, yeah, 55 firms that have joined. So anyway, coming back to our own definition of impact which is, I'm sure many other impact fund will recognize, the first criteria we'll focus on is the intentionality. So we wanna understand, and this will be going along the discussion we'll have with the founding team, but you are, you wanna understand why have they created the company in the very first place. Where did the idea come from, what is the inner motivation? And really here your objective is to understand how impact driven the founding team will be. And as much as you will invest in a team to drive a business you also wanna invest in a team that will drive the impact because, you know, that will keep this in mind as a strong guideline and and vision. But also to make sure that over uh, the years this impact will stay very important. The second one is the additionality. This one is honestly a bit harder to calibrate and and really estimate because the question here is to what extent is the solution you're looking at today is helping solve an issue and a problem that wasn't solved before. So it's about innovation for sure, but it's also about how do you change the status quo and how do you really unlock something that wasn't unlocked. And I'm sure it makes a lot of sense and it should resonate a lot in the circular economy ecosystem because there's many things, but still needs to be to be unlocked on the value chain. So there will be probably a lot of companies that will fit within this definition. And the last one is about measurability, and the question is, are we able to define impact KPIs, on which we will not only be able to be clear on the methodology and the way we'll measure the performance, but we'll also be able to fix targets for those impact KPIs, and those targets will be very important for us as an investment team because 50% of our carried interest will depend on the impact performance, meaning depending on the impact, both impact KPIs and the targets we will have fixed. I think we'll probably go back to that later on, how do we build that with the, the company? But this is something that is also validated by our own investors and our own LPs so that we make sure that there's someone else which is looking at it and say, okay, targets are fine, and then we'll have auditors that will on an yearly basis check how do we uh, perform on those impact KPIs compared to the targets we had set. And that will be very key for the calculation of the carried interest at the end of our investment period.
Patrick Hypscher: That's pretty comprehensive and I'm sure that the intentionality of Ring Capital is, is pretty clear here. And what kind of implications does this have for the due diligence? So, so can you just give like a rough number in terms of weeks, how long it takes you to assess, especially the second two criteria.
Charlotte Lafont: Yeah, it, it can vary a lot, I would say. Because some companies will/can arrive and, you know, they have maybe a rate fund with impact funds in the past, or, you know, their seed fund was done with an impact fund. So they would have done a lot about the structure of the impact governance, the KPIs they would've set, so in, in that situation, of course it would be a bit faster. But if we start from scratch, the intentionality, it's about, you know, having one discussion, one formal discussion with the team on, on that. If you have any doubt, we also have an operating partner, who is focusing on impact. She would have dedicated interview and questions that she will ask to the teams, to have kind of a more objective approach to it because it also be subject ive. And then the additionality is something that you will really measure along the lines of the due diligence because you'll measure that when you'll be talking to customers, other times when you'll be talking to partners. So the question it's, you know, that wouldn't really be a focus in itself, but that would be something we'll always keep in mind while we progress in our due diligence. And setting up the impact KPIs, that we have decided that we are doing this after the closing. So at the time of the due diligence and before we invest, we'll make sure that we have a good idea of what would be the impact KPIs. We'll make sure that we'll be fine and comfortable with setting up targets, but we're not having this discussion prior to the investment because there's already a lot of things to be discussed, and we think those things also take time. So you better have it right after the closing, you know, where everybody's less in a rush, and you can have a more constructive discussion around that. Sometimes you'll need to conduct further analysis such as you know, having a LCA for instance, that will help you setting up the targets in line with the performance of the product. So again, those things can, can take time and, and you better do it properly because the impact plan that you will decide and fix with the company will then last for the next five years. So it's not something that you can do too, too quickly.
Patrick Hypscher: And just like one final question on the, let's say, understanding of impact. So you mentioned the three dimensions, at the same time, you initially also described the high broadness of the investment thesis and the sectors you're looking at. So, where's the limit of impact? Where do you say this is impact? So this is a category we look at. Is there any way that you compare different leads, potential portfolio companies to each other. So do you have a common basis that you say, this is our impact score, how we try to normalize these kind of investments and enable yourself to make a decision that strive for maximum impact.
Charlotte Lafont: True. We have an impact scorecard with several questions, should be around I think 20 or 25 questions that would discuss about how critical is the impact that you're looking at, how scalable is the solution to help and, and reach that impact. So for sure everything that will be scrutinized and screened in this impact scorecard, we do it on an automatic basis and then we'll have, you know, the score at the end that will help us also determine. And we have a score below which we have decided that this company doesn't match with our investment thesis. So when we have a doubt we actually use it quite early in the process, and we run the company through this impact scorecard. I've done it in the past and looking at the score at the bottom of the page, I realize that, you know, if we follow our investment thesis, this company is not having enough of an impact, or it doesn't, it's not a good fit compared to what we have decided. Not meaning that, you know, it's not an impact company, it's just that's how we set the rules and it's not working for us. So that's a good way also sometimes to have kind of a more objective view and standardized approach. What we're not doing today is we're not comparing. You know, if the company has a good impact, we're not comparing. We're not comparing companies between each other based on their impact because our investment thesis is so large that you cannot really compare, you know, companies that will have a social impact, companies that will have an environmental impact, for instance. Um, so things are more difficult to compare, I think. Maybe it's easier for you know, sector focused funds, but still, I think, you know, working with your investment thesis and deploying the fund is already a thing. So we haven't came to that position and, and discussion yet.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. I know that you used the instrument of the Impact Business Case. Can you tell us more about that?
Charlotte Lafont: Sure. Happy to do so, and maybe we would be helpful if I can take a few examples of how does that materialize. So the, the impact business case is really about the impact KPIs that you will set with the management. And, and the first difficulty is you need to identify the KPI for sure. You need to make sure that the methodology is clear, on how do we, well, you calculate the, not only the target, but then also the achievement of the, the company based on those impact KPIs, and sometimes the challenge is thinking of impact KPIs that will, that are relevant today that will keep on being relevant in the next five years. So that's always how do you project the impact and how you make sure that this is so core and so key and strategic for the company that this will remain. And the example that I can take here is investment we've made in the low carbon construction space. So it's a company that is doing, you know, modular housing based out of wood. So they have an initial site, they're producing the buildings. And the impact KPIs we have decided, the first one will be about the tons of CO2 that you can avoid thanks to this construction mode. So it's purely climate kind of KPI would say. And then based on that core KPI will also try to extrapolate, and look for having a broader view on what should be the impact of the company. So the second one is about the tons of concrete that are actually avoided thanks to the use of wood. And then it comes about the impact that you'll have on actual, actual resources such as sand and water, because concrete use a lot of sand and water. So it's more of a biodiversity like KPI. And the third one is about the percentage of the building that we'll have obtained a level and a stamp certification that would say that the building is of good quality and high performance when it comes to energy efficiency. So, so every time we're entering in a company through a certain angle, thinking okay, this company has a great impact. For instance, I'm thinking of agriculture, which is also a great example of that. We recently made an investment in the agriculture space, thinking okay, that's a great impact on climate because if you look at the share of you know, emissions that are actually linked to, to the, the agriculture value chain, of course, that's a, a large challenge to tackle. But then if you look at the business within the solution that exists on the market, you realize that it's not only an impact on climate that you'll have, but it's also an impact on biodiversity. And there's no solution that can fly. There's not an impact also on the social and economic aspect of this value chain thinking, how do you actually can pay more the farmers that are you know, leading the change, if you wanna change how our practices are made. In the agricultural space there's also an impact, potential impact on health because, you know, producing differently with a more regenerative way is actually, there's a lot of scientific research going on, but it's, it start to be proven, but it's also better for your health because the more nutriment in the, in the food. So the idea is also trying to think about, you know, the impact you can have on a more of a 360 approach. Because there're things you can maximize, but there're also things you need to be careful of. When I started investing in, in the climate space, I was very worried of the false good idea, I would say. Like, you know, that's a great idea because you'll have a great impact on carbon, but then you'll have, you know, destroying impact on biodiversity, for instance. Or because when you scale the solution, you realize that it doesn't make sense from a natural resources perspective. And I think the LCA is a great tool for that either way, because you have a more comprehensive view on your impact. So, so this is the example of you know, an impact businessman when we will try to have a comprehensive view of what is the impact of the company, what is the key KPI, the north star. But what is also the other KPIs that we can have to make sure that we have, you know, a 360 approach when it comes to impact.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. And just to put it back into perspective and wrap up the impact part. So I guess these KPIs, they are part of the milestones and then they even are relevant for you for your carried interest, as you mentioned, right?
Charlotte Lafont: And, and to be more clear and and explicit on that. So the targets will be set. They will be validated by our investor, discussed and, and validated. They will be audited on an annual basis by a third party, so we have a consulting firm and an auditor, which is, you know, reaching out to our portfolio, checking the impact performance. And every year we'll have we'll be able to monitor the impact performance and when we will exit the company will not only look at the financial performance that we can make on EBIT, also whether they have met our impact KPIs. And if we do get the 100% of our carriage, this will only be possible, , If we have also reached our uh impact objectives and targets.
Patrick Hypscher: That's, impressive.
Charlotte Lafont: Yeah, it's actually, I, I have to say it's, we're not the only one to do so. There're more and more impact funds that are doing so. So now the challenge is also on how can you work on harmonizing all this and, you know, making sure that we won't have, you know, like four to five impacts business plan that they will had to follow with slightly different KPIs, slightly different targets. So there's a, there's a whole of work to do in that as well, but it's going, going in the right direction.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, let's change a bit the direction, as you already mentioned a few examples. And we want to look at yeah, two sectors and, and dive a bit deeper. The first one uh, is about, materials and advanced materials that are pretty crucial to achieve a higher impact. So when you look at materials, what kind of sub-sectors or groups do you see there?.
Charlotte Lafont: Yeah, so, so I think materials is definitely a sub-sector where we've received a lot of investment opportunities since we launched our venture funds, so four years ago now. There's a different industry that can actually, you know, benefit from this innovation and new technologies that are coming into market. The safe sectors where we see the more solutions are probably in the packaging industry. That's something that we see a lot. We see also a lot of new technologies and new materials in the space of the construction sector. So new building material. You know, things about the isolation. And it's sometimes, you know, it can be high tech or low tech, that actually can actually vary a lot. And the last one I think would be around the food industry for sure. That's something also we we've seen a lot, but around ingredients. And how can you also innovate to have a more circular approach in, in the way you produce food.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, and if I reflect on the three sectors you mentioned, it sounds like for packaging, this is also driven by regulation um, for construction and food. This is also probably driven by demand. Are there other factors that led to these three sectors?
Charlotte Lafont: Yeah, the first one, so the packaging, I think regulation has been a driver for sure. My understanding of the emerging market is that the market has focused a lot about how do you reduce and reuse, more than how do you work on new technologies. So the demand has been quite challenging, I think on that side because it's not easy to put on the market new packaging based on the new material because everybody today is focusing on, on reducing and reusing, and basically the recycling part is key. So if there's no use case where your technology is actually being able to integrate into the recycling system that is already in place and for that only the certain volume of production. So that makes bit of a, you know, a gap that is not to bridge because the market has not really being focusing on breakthrough technologies in terms of of packaging. Even if you come to the market with something which is affordable, which has the same functionalities, which you can produce in, in large quantities, uh, we'll probably look at it. But my understanding is that there wasn't really the focus on the, on the market. For everything which is around construction. I think the sector is, is quite specific because the price is very sensitive. So it's hard to come with a new technology, which is with, you know, great functionalities, has super performance based on environmental criteria, but it's also more expensive. You know, that's another industry where you cannot afford to pay more. The margin are very, are very low, so you don't have much flexibility. And the last one for the food industry, I came to realize that uh, this is one of the hardest industry to invest in because not only you'll need to find solutions that are better performing from an environmental perspective, you also need to make sure that they're good for your health. You also need to make sure that they're, you know good quality. There's no shortage, no, no stress, no pressure on the input, and you also need to make this whole innovation competitive in price. If you don't wanna stay focusing on the niche market. So I think for, for each of them, they're kind of you know, challenges and, and that's why one of the, the question you asked previously, I think is absolutely key is the timeframe that we have to invest in in this type of solution. I think being able to you know, invest in in companies and having patient capital that can really support them on the long run will probably help solve some of those challenges.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Yeah. Let's hope so. You highlighted also the role of recycling, so maybe beyond materials, let's look at waste management here, which I mean, is, is part of that, or like a small part. So what's your perspective on that industry? Do you have an example here?
Charlotte Lafont: Yeah, we, we were actually looking at that sector for a while. We hadn't invested since we started, but we just made a new investment in that space. So we're very happy to have put our first foot in the waste industry, in the waste management question which is of course one of the key challenges, if you look at, you know, the main changes from an environmental perspective. And the focus of the company which I think is interesting is you know, if, if you look at the challenges that you're having in the recycling industry, and if you, you talk to people from collection centers or incineration center, the question of the quality of the influence that you'll get from the very first part of the chain, which is the collection part, is something which is of key value for them. So the company we invested in is called Lixo, installing sensors at the back of collection trucks. And they can really collect all the information and the images to identify sorting errors and also identify any dangerous items. So that's something that will be of high value for the operators to really optimise the logistic around the collection and making sure that they can have cleaner inflows when you enter into the collection centers that will really help you then better sort, but also better recycle because you'll have just cleaner input. And in addition to that, the interesting thing about the deal is the technology is so precise on where was the waste collected, that you can actually have much more dedicated awareness campaign and very more precisely know: in this street, in this building is actually performing not very well from a sorting perspective. So then you can have dedicated actions from you know, municipalities and things like that. So it helps being more efficient in the way you can really bring more awareness in how are you supposed to sort your waste and help then the recycling ecosystem. And I think it comes to a question, which is something, we very often look at, when we look at circular economy is how, how do you integrate into the value chain? So it's great to have, you know, something which is very innovative, great technology. Some of them are coming from the best universities or research centers. They've been, you know, being developed for several years, they come with great IP setup and things like that but if it cannot reintegrate into the existing value chain and you need the whole ecosystem to change, then it's very hard to scale. So, you know, being very focused on how do you integrate into the existing value chain, how do you bring the most value from the technology you developed is something which I think is of a high interest also for that sector.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, true. On that one, when it comes to the integration of that example, so it sounds like as if the main use of this data is then to run more specific awareness campaigns. Is there also an opportunity to kind of connect it to sorting steps later on? Because I mean, if the waste in a mixed composition is already in the bin so that's at least for that specific bin, it's, it's already too late, or is it then also enabling a better sorting afterwards?
Charlotte Lafont: No, it can help a better sorting, actually, the awareness is only a part of it, but it can help a better sorting because then you'll get alerted on how contaminated is actually the truck. And so whether you can still go to its initial collection center and sorting center, or whether you know, you will actually be either refused or it will then further down the line contaminate more the waste because it'll be then put with the rest of them. So it's really about how do you calibrate and make sure that, you know, a given truck can actually change direction and change collection center because the waste which is inside is not proper fit for where it was supposed to go. Some centers can actually dispose the waste before it gets to the collection and collective part. So they can do this before just entering into it, they clean it, and then you make sure that the rest of it is clean enough and you can actually just take out what was polluting the truck and the waste that was in there.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Charlotte, let's wrap this up, which feels hard because I have many more questions. Um, but yeah, to sum it up, what's your tip to circular founders applying for funding these days?
Charlotte Lafont: I would first you know, encourage them to continue and go on because I think we need more of the solutions for sure. And you know, the more we have, the best investment we'll make, and then you create the whole ecosystem and the success condition to it. So first, I'll certainly encourage that. But the second one is if you're talking to an investor, what I would be very sensitive on is focusing on the product market fit. And you know, being very clear on where's the demand today and to what extent your solution can actually match that demand. What's your view on price and how competitive can you be? And if it's a question of volume, of course, you know, we can understand that. But what is the trajectory and, and what is the journey you are on? Because it comes back to the first point on the demand, right? It's uh, you know, how could you make sure that only talking to a niche market that you can really unlock a mass market and push in price will be key for that. How do you integrate on the value chain? We have just discussed that, and how do you also work with your ecosystem? You know, I think that's definitely a sector where you need to make sure that you'll have the right partners. You'll have, you know, the right setup to create the conditions of your success.
Patrick Hypscher: My second question is about the future. What trends do you see in circular businesses in the next three years?
Charlotte Lafont: The first thing I hope will materialize quickly is realizing that circular economy is also about resilience. Because if you have you know, better circular economy, then you enhance everything which is around reducing consumption of material, reusing them. So you are becoming less dependent on supply chain. We know how exposed our supply chains are you know, and how splitted over the world they are. So I think having a circular economy is actually of great value from a strategic perspective. So I hope that you know, industrial incumbents will also take back into account to a larger extent and really accelerate on that topic, and by accelerating, those players could actually create and, and generate the demand we're discussing about because they definitely have the volume. So I think they can really be of a great help if they integrate that as something which is strategy and not something they have to do on the side, either for regulation perspective or for marketing perspective. I think it's has to be, you know, key and strategic for them. And then the other trends I would see is, of course, you know, I think AI will play a key role in that sector. I hope it'll, you know, when it comes to if you look at the waste industry having more and more information on how do you, how can you improve the sorting processes? How can you improve the recycling processes? How do you improve everything around the maintenance as well to enhance the lifetime of a product? How do you work on eco-design? We have a lot of database for material functionality. So I'm sure you know I'm not specialist in AI but I'm sure that you know there definitely role for AI to play in that, and that can also unlock the market.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, true. Charlotte my last question is not about AI, but about the humans. So what kind of listeners should reach out to you? Uh.
Charlotte Lafont: Good question. I think of course, entrepreneurs are very welcome to reach out. If it wasn't clear at the beginning that we can invest from pre-seed to growth stage companies, so that's a wide range of companies. So there's many chances. I hope that we'll have entrepreneurs that will listen to that conversation and, and can reach out to us. We'll be very happy to have a discussion, if we're not raising funds yet. But otherwise, review, you know, if they're in the process of fundraising. And any other funds that are investing in that space or in the impact space that we're not in contact with already are always a good discussion to have. We need more of an ecosystem approach also at the fund level, so very happy to take those conversations. And of course, people working in that industry, enablers, facilitators. I'll be happy, you know, just to have discussion and, you know, as many people, as we meet, as, as more intelligent we'll become on that topic. So I'm sorry because the answer is quite large, but I'm very happy, you know, our, job as an investor is really to talk to people. So that's a question where the answer can be endless.
Patrick Hypscher: Wonderful, Charlotte. Thanks for talking to me. Charlotte Lafont: Thank you, Patrick. It was nice having this conversation. Thank you for having me.
Patrick Hypscher: This was Charlotte Lafont, Principal at Ring Capital. This episode is part of our series VC for circularity. If you want to get the actionable one pager about this conversation, sign up for the Circularity.fm newsletter. You can find it at www.circularity.fm. Let's drive a profitable circular economy. And please don't forget, the most abundant renewable resource is your imagination. My name is Patrick Hypscher and this is Circularity.Fm the podcast about understanding, building and managing circular business models.