Using an action-research and a toolkit development approach, this paper uncovers the epistemological limitations of the Lean Startup and Design Thinking heuristics and proposes a novel 'wicked acceleration' framework to address a grand challenge in the sustainability domain: circular economy innovation. Circular economy innovation is a 'wicked problem', where multiple stakeholders operate under different timescales with often conflicting interests in terms of value creation, value capture, and behavioral change. We illustrate our novel systemic approach with case data from the World Economic Forum's Scale360° Initiative and discuss both the epistemological, ethical and practitioner implications regarding its societal adoption and scaling.