€570K non-dilutive funding received · live with Kuyichi since February 2025 · won eBay's pitching contest March 2026

Investors

Building Europe's leading returns-to-resale infrastructure.

The product is live. Market fit is demonstrated. We are raising to scale sales. This page covers the thesis. Detailed materials on financial projections, use of funds, and unit economics are available on request.

Why we exist

Most pre-seed SaaS companies start with a product hypothesis and a founder's network. We started differently. Our co-founder Carl van Heijst submitted a peer-reviewed paper on peer-to-peer return logistics to Omega (Elsevier) in 2023, co-authored with researchers at VU Amsterdam and Erasmus University Rotterdam. Rather than wait for the peer review to conclude, Carl left consulting and founded the company the same September, betting it on the research itself. The paper was published the following year in Omega 128 (Elsevier, 2024), confirming up to 44% warehouse return reduction: the theoretical basis the company had already been operating on.

For investors: this is what the pre-seed package looks like. A thesis submitted to one of the world's top operations research journals and founded on before peer review concluded, then formally validated in that journal the following year. A co-founder who co-authored the paper. A live product serving real clients with numbers that match the paper's predictions. A global marketplace (eBay) pitching-contest win with pilot scoping in progress. This is not a pre-product investment, and it is not a product-without-validation investment. It's a validated thesis being rolled out at increasing scale, by a founding team that committed to it before the validation was complete.

Why now

Three forces converge in the next 36 months.

Industry context →

Regulation is forcing the issue.

CSRD (in force) requires large companies to report environmental impact. The Green Claims Directive (in force 2026) prohibits unsubstantiated sustainability claims, including offsets as a substitute for real reduction. CDDD (2027) adds supply-chain due diligence obligations. All three directives shift returns from "sustainability nice-to-have" to "compliance obligation" for European fashion retailers. Forwarding produces ISO-standard per-transaction impact data that satisfies all three.

Consumers are ready.

Vinted has 100+ million European users. Peer-to-peer transfer of consumer goods is normalised behaviour. When Kuyichi's consumers see the Forwarding option, 43% choose it without hesitation. This would not have been true five years ago.

The competitive window is open.

The peer-to-peer return forwarding category is validated but the leader is not yet decided. Existing entrants are platform-restricted, lack peer-reviewed validation, or are based outside the EU. Live production with real client data, EU-native compliance, and an open-protocol layer are structural advantages we are pressing now.

We're not early. We're right on time.

Where we are today

€570K

Non-dilutive grant funding received (€110K pending)

Mastercard Strive EU (1 of 10 from 495), MIT R&D (Provincie ZH), SoTecIn (EU Horizon)

43% / 65%

Consumer adoption / buyer acceptance

Live Kuyichi data, 2025. Match the paper's predictions.

4.8/5

Buyer satisfaction on Forwarded purchases

Live data, 2025

eBay

Won pitching contest, March 2026

Pilot scoping in progress; exact pilot shape TBD

Kuyichi has been live on Forwarding since February 2025. Oilily and Studio Anneloes are onboarding. ANWB go-live is agreed. eBay pilot scoping is in progress from the March 2026 contest win. Live data tracks the paper's predictions: a validated thesis being executed at increasing scale.

Market opportunity

TAM

€1.73B

Total addressable market: all fashion e-commerce returns in Europe

SAM

€606M

Serviceable addressable market: retailers viable for Forwarding

Market sizing based on European fashion e-commerce returns. Specific company targets and obtainable-market projections are part of the investor materials.

For serious investors

Detailed materials available on request.

Financial projections, use of funds, runway, cap table, unit economics, and the deal terms are reserved for investors actively evaluating an engagement. Request access via email and we'll set up a 30-minute call to discuss thesis fit before sharing materials.

Request investor materials

Carl van Heijst replies personally to every investor inquiry within one business day.

Who you are backing

Carl van Heijst

Co-founder & Sales lead

The person who started It Goes Forward. Co-author of the peer-reviewed Omega 128 paper (Elsevier, 2024) on peer-to-peer return logistics. Submitted the research in 2023 and founded the company the same September, before peer review had concluded. Leads all commercial operations and client relationships at IGF. MSc. Supply Chain Management, RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam. Post-graduate Data Analytics, JADS/TU Eindhoven/Tilburg.

Pepijn Stribos

Co-founder & Tech lead

Joined Carl in 2023 to turn the algorithm in Eruguz, Van Heijst et al. (2024) into a production platform. Autodidact full-stack developer since age 14. Founded multiple companies before IGF. MSc. Marketing, RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam. Leads product and engineering.

Tim Stribos

Co-founder

Joined Carl and Pepijn in 2023 to bring e-commerce scale-up experience to the founding team. Ex-CTO at Dwarfs (raised €65M during his tenure). Deep experience scaling e-commerce marketplaces.

Advisory board

Marijn Visser

Global Vertical Head Lifestyle, A.P. Moller - Maersk

24 years of enterprise fashion logistics experience. Maersk is the world's largest shipping integrator, expanding into reverse logistics.

John Poppelaars

Founder, Doing The Math

30+ years as applied mathematician. Supports development of the matching algorithm. MSc. Econometrics from Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Academic advisors

Prof. Rommert Dekker (Erasmus, Operations Research), Dr. Sena Ayse Eruguz (VU Amsterdam, Omega paper lead author), Dr. Wilco van den Heuvel (Erasmus, Omega co-author).

Full team and advisory detail on the about page. Full team →

A strategic note on positioning

We open-sourced the protocol beneath our commercial product. OpenReturn (openreturn.io, Apache 2.0) is the specification, reference implementation, and MCP server for e-commerce returns, published publicly and maintained as a commons. We monetise the Forwarding layer on top. This is the same playbook Vercel uses with Next.js, Elastic with Elasticsearch, GitLab with its platform. In emerging categories, the company that sets the open standard tends to lead the commercial layer.

What we look for

Knowledge and network

In apparel, B2B SaaS enterprise sales, or peer-to-peer / B2B2C business models. We want investors who have seen this category and can open doors.

Alignment with impact

Forwarding has a clear, measurable environmental benefit: 310g CO₂ per Forward, ISO-standard, CSRD-applicable. We want investors who take this seriously, not as a pitch, but as a reason to invest.

Hands-on where useful, hands-off where not

Our founders are deep in both the research and the product. We want investors who add value through network and pattern recognition, not by trying to manage the company.

Grant history: what has already been funded

Grant	Institute	Amount	Status
MIT R&D (with Doing The Math)	Provincie Zuid-Holland	€110,000	Fully received
Winner Mastercard Strive EU Innovation Fund 2024	Mastercard Strive	€330,000	Fully received
MIT Haalbaarheidsstudie	Provincie Zuid-Holland	€20,000	Fully received
EU Horizon 2020 SoTecIn	European Union	€110,000	Fully received
MIT R&D (with Indicia)	Provincie Zuid-Holland	€110,000	Submitted, pending
WBSO R&D uren subsidy	Dutch national government	Tax discount on hours	Received, ongoing

Total received: €570,000 (pending: €110,000)

Grants have funded the initial product build, algorithm research, and early market validation. The equity round funds the scale phase.

In addition to grants, we received $40,000 in Google Cloud credits as part of the Google for Startups Sustainable Development programme (October 2024). These credits fund our infrastructure, not our operations.

Get in touch directly

For thesis discussions, partnership conversations, or anything that doesn't fit the materials request above.

Email: hello@itgoesforward.com · Zomerhofstraat 71, Rotterdam