Recycleye lands US$17M for AI-powered waste sorting robot developments

07 Feb 2023 --- Recycleye, a provider of the “most adapted and robust” artificial intelligence (AI)-driven solution for sorting dry mixed recycling (DMR), has announced a US$17 million Series A financing round, led by deep-tech venture capital firm DCVC to support the search for the best talent to help continue turning the world’s waste into resources.

Recycleye uses AI-powered waste-picking robots to lower the cost of sorting materials. According to the company, this “ground-breaking” technology is turning the world’s waste into resources and delivering data essential for dynamic decision-making in a material recovery facility (MRF). The new investment will be used to further improve the uncommon accuracy of Recycleye’s sorting. 

“With the investment from the Series A funding round, Recycleye will be able to further fine-tune its world-leading solutions by increasing the accuracy of sorting to generate more output value for its clients,” a spokesperson at Recycleye tells PackagingInsights. 

Recycleye tech
Recycleye was co-founded in 2019 by CEO Victor Dewulf and CTO Peter Hedley and its technology is installed in facilities in England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Australia, the US and France, with multiple robot orders confirmed in Italy and Belgium. 

The company spokesperson explains that Recycleye Robotics is a purpose-built solution for picking DMR in MRFs. Powered by AI and deep machine learning, the robot is as accurate as a human eye and is able to sort limitless classes of waste. “The robot is deployed across the UK and Europe, helping MRFs increase their output, as well as the purity of that output.” 

Recycleye’s technology combines computer vision and robotics to pick with more consistent accuracy than a human. Using proprietary AI models, the robot “sees” waste and is trained to pick an unlimited number of material classes such as plastics, aluminum, paper and cardboard. 

Recycleye engineers are able to retrofit the company’s technology into existing sorting facilities.Sorting DRMs
The company claims Recycleye Robotics to be “the most accurate and efficient AI robotic picking solution globally available today.” 

The spokesperson highlights that what sets Recycleye Robotics apart from the competition is that it is a purpose-built solution, which it has been specifically designed with DMR in mind. 

“The 6-axis robotic arm, manufactured by robotics leader FANUC, has a pick-rotate-shoot functionality, meaning less time wasted traveling across the belt to pick and sort items. Other AI robotic picking solutions use ‘delta’ robots, which must move directly above an item to pick it, before moving directly above a bin to drop it, whereas Recycleye uses its pneumatics system to shoot items off to their required sorting bins.” 

“Additionally, the robot is much easier to install, retrofittable to any waste line thanks to its weight of 250 kg – up to 75% lighter than competitors’ solutions.” 

Robots vs. conventional waste sorting 
Furthermore, objects are scanned and identified at 60 frames per second. This is “twice as fast as the industry standard” and means that each item is seen on average 30 times as it passes along the conveyor belt, with double the chance of being accurately identified before picking. 

The company says it is working with a growing number of waste management companies facing the two-fold challenge of labor shortages and increased costs while responding to a growing demand for quality recyclates. 

Conventionally, waste is sorted using manual labor. “The working conditions of a MRF make this an unpleasant job, which leads to high turnover, low availability and a lack of reliability when trying to sort waste consistently,” says the Recyleye spokesperson. 

“Recycleye Robotics, on the other hand, has the functionality to operate 24/7, 365 days a year. Essentially, Recycleye can increase the purity and efficiency of the waste sorting process, all while reducing the need for manual labor in these conditions.”While traditional waste recycling requires manual labor, Recycleye Robotics can operate around the clock.

Scaling operations
Today, many materials cost more to sort than they are worth and are therefore downcycled.

In 2022, the OECD reported that only 9% of plastic has ever been recycled, with around 50% going to landfills. Changing this wasteful and environmentally damaging dynamic, seen across a range of materials, presents a “tremendous” business opportunity, according to Recycleye.

Recycleye engineers are able to retrofit the company’s technology into existing sorting facilities and over a weekend if needed to minimize plant downtime. Installed at the end of the sorting process, Recycleye robot models can pick contaminants and valuable objects, depending on client requirements, both of which may have been missed earlier in a plant’s sorting process.

“The opportunity for applying AI waste sorting technology to the global waste management sector is staggering, even when only 8% of waste is currently recycled,” says CEO Victor Dewulf.

“With this investment, we can scale our operations to target a market which we estimate to have a SAM of US$114 billion globally today, but with the potential to increase by 14 times to US$1.6 trillion when the cost of sorting is reduced.”

Kelly Chen, a partner at DCVC, adds: “Recycleye is a quintessential DCVC investment, using deep tech to fundamentally shift the economics and scale of the trillion-dollar problem of material recovery and recycling.”

DCVC led the funding round, with existing investors increasing their stakes. Promus Ventures, Playfair Capital, MMC Ventures, Creator Fund and Atypical were joined by new Madrid-based investors Seaya Andromeda. The Series A follows US$5 million previously raised in 2021 and US$2.6 million secured to date in European and UK government innovation funding.

“We believe that waste does not exist, only materials in the wrong place,” concludes CTO Peter Hedley. 

By Natalie Schwertheim