Thank You!
2025 Pitch Showcase
2025 SHOWCASE WINNERS
Organics Best Pitch $10,000: Bio Fiber Industries
Organics People’s Choice $1,000: Ocean Made
Innovation Best Pitch $10,000: Diaper Stork
Innovation People’s Choice $1,000: New Type Group
Reuse Best Pitch $10,000: FanWagn
Reuse People’s Choice $1,000: Kimora Garden
The NextCycle WA Pitch Showcase was co-located with the Washington State Recycling Association Annual Conference
Special thanks goes to the WSRA for sharing their space and creating a unique opportunity for WSRA members and friends to experience the innovation and collaboration of NextCycle Washington. Be sure to visit the WSRA website to learn more about their efforts to improve recycling in Washington state.
Meet the Teams
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Businesses and projects that are developing or scaling operations utilizing organic waste streams.
Bio Fiber Industries: launching a pilot facility to transform agricultural waste from cannabis, hemp, and hops into construction materials and renewable energy.
Biomethane LLC: completing a feasibility study of converting Spokane County organic waste into renewable natural gas.
Dancing Goats and Singing Chickens Organic Farm: expanding its composting efforts to include food waste sourced from local restaurants and schools.
Jefferson Timber Cooperative: developing a wood processing center that transforms sawdust, offcuts, and shavings into biofuels, composting substrates, and interior paneling.
OceanMade LLC: piloting the production and sale of plant pots made from kelp and recycled organic fibers.
Seeking Ferments: refining its circular gut-healthy beverage production to optimize bottle reuse and utilize fruit waste to develop new products.
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Businesses and projects that are developing or utilizing new and innovative technologies or processes.
99Bridges: developing MOSAIC, an operating system combining software and hardware that tracks reusable cups and containers from use to return.
Diaper Stork: integrating biochar pyrolysis into its commercial composting site, transforming non-reusable diapers into valuable resources.
Key Tech Labs: transforming decommissioned solar panels into sustainable robotic systems that automate seeding, watering, and weeding of community gardens and urban farms.
NewType Group: piloting a decentralized enzymatic hydrolysis system to break down and re-polymerize PET plastics.
ReuMo: piloting a small-scale water filter that places moss in the path of stormwater headed for drains.
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Businesses and projects that are developing or scaling operations that reuse or repair materials.
Around Again: expanding to accept more items and create incubator spaces to reuse, repair, and repurpose building products and home furnishing materials.
FanWagn: expanding a platform that enables peer-to-peer resale of licensed sports apparel.
Kimora Garden: establishing an online client base and expanding operations to a brick-and-mortar space featuring upcyclers and thrifters.
Spread Supplies: scaling their operations to attract more donations and expand the used art supply section of the retail store.
Transcend: launching a hyper-local fashion supply chain that transforms Seattle’s textile waste into high-quality garments, made by refugee seamstresses and rooted in heritage craft and circular design.
What is a Pitch Showcase?
Repeat the pitch + question cycle for each team.
Teams compete within each pitch group: Organics,
Innovation, and Reuse.Judges’ scoring is based on the team’s value proposition, financial readiness, holistic impacts, team and partners, and pitch delivery and performance.
May 19, 2025 | Northern Quest Resort & Casino
Owned and operated by the Kalispel Tribe of Indians
Agenda
• 1:00 pm Welcome
• 1:15 pm Keynote Speaker
• 1:35 pm Pitch Group 1 - Organics
• 2:45 pm Networking Break
• 3:00 pm Pitch Group 2 - Innovation
• 4:00 pm Networking Break
• 4:15 pm Pitch Group 3 - Reuse
• 5:15 pm Networking Break
• 5:30 pm Award Ceremony
• 6:00pm WSRA Welcome Reception*
*Please indicate if you will attend the WSRA Welcome Reception on your NextCycle Showcase registration form.
Keynote Speaker
Rebecca Hu-Thrams, CEO and Co-Founder of Glacier
Glacier, a NextCycle alum, is a startup building cutting-edge AI and proprietary robotic designs that pick and sort materials in recycling facilities. Glacier’s robotics can sort over 30 different materials, achieving 45 picks per minute, and are 60% more affordable than competitors.
Rebecca started Glacier in 2019, driven by the combination of her “eco-anxiety”, interest in industrials and consumer goods, and her business management career experience. That drive has continued and achieved major milestones including:
Mar 2022: Part of inaugural cohort for NextCycle Michigan, receives Technical Support Award during Pitch Showcase.
Apr 2022: Raised $4.5 million in seed funding from New Enterprise Associates to increase headcount and accelerate commercial deployment.
Apr 2023: Participated in second cohort for NextCycle Washington.
Mar 2024: Receives $7.7 million from Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, New Enterprise Associates, and additional funders to expand its team and develop AI-enabled robots.
Mar 2025: Named as one of Inc. Magazine's 2025 Female Founders 500.
Apr 2025: Receives $16 million in Series A funding round to scale recycling robots across the U.S.
Rebecca was recognized as one of Waste360’s 40 Under 40 in 2024. In her Waste360 interview, she shared the idea of “reasoning from first principles”:
The idea here is really to try to abandon any notion of the way things are currently done and just look at the problem itself, and think about how you might try to tackle it if you didn’t know anything about it previously. I think that can spark some interesting new ideas for how to do things better or how to incorporate new tools, and it leads folks to embrace a more experimental mindset when it comes to bettering the outcomes for the entire industry.
Join us at the 2025 NextCycle Washington Pitch Showcase to hear Rebecca share her insights on sustainability-minded entrepreneurship and its challenges and rewards.
Sponsors
Thank you sponsors!
NextCycle Washington is built on a foundation of collaboration and partnership. Your organization can be a part of accelerating reuse, repair, recycling, and composting in Washington - demonstrating a commitment to advancing solutions and building an equitable circular economy.
Contact us to discuss how you can be a part of NextCycle Washington.
Sponsorship inquiries: mradiwon@recycle.com.