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Recycling today is bad. People are usually confused about what can be recycled and where. As a result, just about 32% Of eligible waste is already recycled.
It would be a lot easier if people could dump everything into one container and let waste management companies handle it, but this has proven to be very expensive with humans in the loop.
Enter robots. Countless companies, from small startups like Glacier to large multinational corporations like Apple, are working to automate the recycling process. Most of this work has focused on the robots themselves, placing them in existing facilities to help humans recover more waste.
More recently, Amp Robotics, an early entrant, changed its business model to focus on operating entire facilities. This transformation has now netted the company $91 million in new funding.
The ten-year-old company has deployed about 400 robots and operates three facilities with another under construction. Companies can select the number of sorting units depending on the amount of waste they need to sort or the materials they are looking for. Inside, cameras monitor the flow of waste, using artificial intelligence to determine what can be recycled, and robotic arms extract parts from the conveyor belt.
Amp handles operations, maintenance and upgrades, with the contracting company dealing with waste sources, extracting any valuable materials, and disposing of anything that cannot be recycled. It’s essentially another “as-a-service” business model, where the company charges a fee for each ton of waste sorted.
The new funding round, Series D, was led by Congruent Ventures with participation from Blue Earth Capital, California State Teachers Retirement System, Liberty Mutual Investments, Wellington Management, Range Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Tao Capital Partners, and XN.
The round is slightly smaller than Amp’s Series C round, which after additions ended up raising $104 million per dollar. SEC filingshighlighting the challenging fundraising environment that many mid- and late-stage startups face.
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