Forwarding selected as finalist in eBay Circular Fashion Fund 2026

It Goes Forward was named as one of eight international finalists in the 2026 eBay Circular Fashion Fund, presenting in New York at the global final on 29 May. The global prize went to Trosort, an AI-powered textile sorting technology focused on modernising secondhand clothing operations.

The eBay Circular Fashion Fund supports businesses developing solutions across the circular fashion ecosystem — from resale and repair through textile recovery infrastructure. Since launching in 2022, the programme has supported more than 30 businesses globally, with eBay's total investment through the programme expected to reach $1.9 million by the end of 2026.

Carl van Heijst, co-founder of It Goes Forward, presented Forwarding's peer-to-peer return forwarding methodology and live deployment data to a judging panel including Alexis Hoopes (VP Fashion at eBay), Federica Marchionni (CEO at Global Fashion Agenda), Laird Borrelli-Persson (Senior Archive Editor at Vogue), and Joe Murphy (Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation).

Following the New York final, eBay has expressed interest in exploring a Forwarding pilot — early-stage commercial conversations are now underway separately from the fund competition.

Congratulations to Trosort on the global win. Textile sorting is one of the genuinely hard infrastructure problems in fashion circularity, and seeing AI applied to it at scale is exactly the kind of work the fund was designed to back.

For more on the eBay Circular Fashion Fund 2026 outcome, see the announcement from TheIndustry.fashion.