Seed15 December 2020

Recycleye secures £1.2m seed funding led by MMC Ventures and Playfair Capital to scale waste sorting robotics

The seed round was led by MMC Ventures and Playfair Capital, with participation from Atypical Ventures, Creator Fund, and eolos.

£1.2MSeed

Recycleye provides artificial intelligence and robotics solutions to automate and improve the sorting of dry mixed recycling in waste management facilities.

Recycleye has secured £1.2m in seed funding to advance its artificial intelligence and robotics technology for the waste management industry. The round was co-led by venture capital firms MMC Ventures and Playfair Capital, with participation from Atypical Ventures, Creator Fund, and eolos. The company plans to use the capital to scale its affordable robotics from development to commercialisation.

The London-based start-up has developed a computer vision system that detects and classifies items in waste streams by material, object, and brand. The company previously received grants from Innovate UK and the European Union, and has established partnerships with Microsoft and academic institutions including Imperial College London and the Delft University of Technology.

From the founder

"I was impressed by Recycleye’s expertise, and their incredible ability to federate around them, the best academic, technological and industrial skills, as well as to transpose all this knowledge in very concrete cases. I am delighted to support the growth of Recycleye, convinced that they will be able to provide breakthrough technologies to further the creation of an ever more circular economy."

Bernard Harambillet

advisor at Recycleye

Investor perspective

"As deep technology investors, we were impressed by Recycleye’s AI-led computer vision solution to this growing global problem. Yet it is what Victor and Peter have achieved, working fast and lean, in just a year since inception that gives us confidence that they can truly transform the recycling industry with their technology"