Seed23 April 2024

Sorted secures £1.7m seed funding led by Pi Labs to scale recycling technology

The seed round was led by Pi Labs with backing from Archipelago Ventures, Circular Plastics Accelerator, Conduit Connect, Antler, and angel investors.

£1.7MSeed

Sorted is a London-based recycling technology business providing artificial intelligence-enabled solutions to sort recyclable materials. Its proprietary technology uses computer vision and spectroscopy to identify items and guide human pickers at recovery facilities.

London-based recycling technology company Sorted has secured £1.7m in a seed funding round led by Pi Labs. The round also drew participation from Archipelago Ventures, Circular Plastics Accelerator, Conduit Connect, Antler, and a group of angel investors.

The firm plans to direct the new capital towards expanding its technical and business development teams while accelerating its go-to-market strategy. Sorted provides a digitalised solution to material sorting by deploying artificial intelligence, computer vision, and spectroscopy to assist human pickers on recycling lines.

Operating across the UK and France, the startup works with major waste management firms including SUEZ UK and Cawleys. The latest financing will support the company as it meets growing industry demand for improved recycling rates and reduced carbon emissions.

From the founder

"Our mission is to help waste management companies sort their waste more effectively and maximise recovery of recyclable materials through aiding Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) and Plastic Recovery Facilities (PRFs) in improving their workforce efficiency. We use AI to augment and better enable human pickers, and our UK pilots show increased revenue and performance as well as reduced costs through using Sorted’s technology."

Arthur Goujon

Co-Founder and CTO at Sorted

Investor perspective

"With global annual waste generation predicted to increase by 70% between 2018 and 2050, we urgently need innovative solutions to help us move towards a zero waste economy. Corporations risk running afoul of their own corporate sustainability goals unless they maximise their ability to obtain recycled materials. With the creation of their super pickers, Sorted has created a digitalised and sustainable solution to this problem while helping their customers contribute to a circular economy."