Revent, Ananda Impact Ventures, Speedinvest, Bonaventure, and WEPA Ventures participated in a Series A round of funding headed by Vorwerk Ventures on behalf of the waste management and recycling platform Resourcify.
It’s a victory for Resourcify CEO Gary Lewis, who founded the company in 2018 with Felix Heinricy to offer “digital solutions” to recycling and waste management issues. Lewis and Heinricy worked to connect businesses with local recyclers to promote the recycling, remanufacturing, and reuse of goods and materials.
Lewis explained via email that “Resourcify is a cloud-based recycling platform that identifies valuable materials and fosters connections between international corporations and local recyclers.” We aim to fight waste, stop dangerous behaviors like burning, and enable businesses to manage waste on a broad scale efficiently.
At a high level, Resourcify aims to examine how businesses might recycle the resources they use rather than throw them away as garbage. For instance, the platform might consider local recycling routes that make sense for a specific client while also assisting that customer in improving their recycling reporting and invoice management procedures.
From a single dashboard available to customers, Resourcify assists in managing recycling pickup locations, on-site management of recyclable items, material transit, and more. Using a database of recyclables, recyclers, and recycling routes, Resourcify uses machine learning to identify areas where cost reductions might be realized.
Lewis stated that moving from conventional waste management to a thorough circular economy is “one of the major challenges we all face.” It’s vital to remember that a large portion of the trash sector continues to function manually and without automation and that, in many situations, waste is burned rather than recycled. This emphasizes the urgency of updating these procedures to reduce their adverse environmental effects.
Lewis concedes that Resourcify isn’t the only player in the market for digitizing recycling orchestration, which Research and Markets predicts will rise 11.6% from $3.28 billion in 2020 to 2030.
Rubicon Global, a recycling platform in the US, recently made news by merging with SPAC. Another American rival, Road Runner, focuses on data insights.
Resourcify, however, is in a unique position, according to Lewis, because it provides a single solution for “the entire value chain of waste management, recycling, and circularity.”
In collaboration with major companies like Johnson & Johnson, he remarked, “We have built circular programs from the ground up in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.” These initiatives set us apart from all other sector participants, enabling us to construct fully circular material loops.
Currently, Resourcify employs about 60 people and manages over €115 million in garbage for over 50 paying clients, including McDonald‘s and 15,000 companies. Someone who knows the situation tells TechCrunch that Resourcify’s most recent fundraising round values the company at around €50 million (roughly $53.37 million). Revenue has increased year over year over the past three years.
According to Lewis, Resourcify will increase its customer base and go global with the additional funds, bringing its total raised to €23 million (about $24.5 million).
According to Lewis, recycling and trash management are remarkably resilient to economic volatility. “Waste collection and recycling are still necessary, even in challenging economic times. Despite any prospective financial difficulties, Resourcify is in a favorable position for expansion. In addition, because of our dedication to providing complete value-chain solutions, our clients are more likely to work with us in the long run.
