Venture capital firm Foresight Group has invested £25 million into two London-based recycling companies.


Venture capital firm Foresight Group has invested £25 million into two London-based recycling companies. The deal with the unconnected companies is part of Foresight’s aim of investing in businesses in the environmental and cleantech sector.

Plastic bottle recycler Closed Loop Recycling and food recycler Vertal both completed their first recycling plants in 2009.

Vertal composts food waste which is converted into fertiliser. The company also plans to build two further facilities in London over the next three years.

Closed Loop Recycling’s plant processes 35,000 tonnes of plastics annually, which are used to make new food and drink packaging. The company plans to build a further facility in north-west London.

Matt Taylor from Foresight explains: ‘We see hundreds more jobs being created and this sector is sustainable because it’s a local solution to a local problem. By dealing with waste here, something London Mayor Boris Johnson is also calling for, we can avoid wasting money on transport.’

Foresight invests in unquoted UK and European companies and manages approximately £200 million of funds, including Limited Partnerships, Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs).