New investment will help AMP accelerate innovation and scale commercialization to meet the rapidly increasing demand for its AI and robotics applications for the waste industry
AMP Robotics Corp. (“AMP”), a pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics for the waste industry, has raised $55 million in corporate equity in a Series B financing, led by XN with participation from new investors Valor Equity Partners and GV as well as existing investors Sequoia Capital, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, Congruent Ventures, and Closed Loop Partners. This new round of funding follows a $16 million Series A financing led by Sequoia Capital in November 2019.
“We are excited to partner with AMP as Matanya and the team continue to build an exceptional and category-defining business,” said Gaurav Kapadia, founder of XN. “AMP’s technology radically improves the economics and efficiency of recycling and creates transformational long-term value for customers, the economy, and the environment.”
AMP will use this latest funding to scale its business operations to meet the robust market demand for its technology and develop innovative new AI product applications that integrate into materials recovery facilities to increase recycling rates for its customers. The new capital will also support the company’s market expansion as it works with consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, like Keurig Dr Pepper (NASDAQ: KDP), to help them achieve their recycled content and sustainability goals for a circular economy.
“We are blessed with an outstanding group of new investors, a mission-driven team, and amazing customers,” said Matanya Horowitz, founder and CEO of AMP Robotics. “We are putting this next round of investment to work immediately to create novel technology for the waste industry and meaningfully contribute to reducing society’s impact on the environment.”
Globally, more than $200 billion worth of recyclable materials goes unrecovered annually. The economics and efficiency of identifying and sorting paper, plastics, metals, and other recyclables from the waste stream creates a major challenge for material recovery. In recent years, the waste industry has also faced stricter international quality standards for contamination-free imports of recycled materials, leaving the industry in search of cost-effective alternatives to meet these requirements. COVID-19 then forced many businesses to suspend recycling operations due to concerns for worker safety. Simultaneously, the pandemic increased demand for high-quality recycled feedstock to overcome supply chain interruptions and shifts in raw material availability.
AMP Robotics’ technology is helping the waste industry meet these challenges by modernizing recycling—improving material quality, ensuring worker safety, increasing productivity, lowering costs, diverting waste from landfill, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions—while increasing overall rates of recycling and resource recovery.
“AMP is a transformational company in the global waste industry, similar to companies we have partnered with in other sectors,” said Sam Teller, partner at Valor Equity Partners. “We believe deeply in AMP’s potential to update and scale our waste infrastructure to meet ramping demand for recycled content and to create a more sustainable, circular economy.”
AMP’s proprietary technology applies computer vision and deep learning to guide high-speed robotics systems to precisely identify and differentiate recyclables found in the waste stream by color, size, shape, opacity, consumer brand, and more, storing data about each item it perceives. The company’s technology can recognize and recover material as small as a bottlecap and as unique as a Keurig coffee pod from complex material streams so that these materials may serve another productive life in the economy.
“Matanya and the team are experts in machine learning and robotics and have developed a differentiated technology in the recycling business,” said Andy Wheeler, general partner at GV. “AMP has made strong commercial traction in the market and is poised to have a meaningful impact on the recycling industry and global waste management at large.”
In late 2020, AMP signed a long-term agreement with Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE: WCN) to deploy 24 AI-guided robotics systems, the company’s largest contract to date. AMP has hundreds of deployments across three continents, which makes it the leading provider of AI-guided robotics systems for recycling globally. Within the United States, the company’s coast-to-coast reach spans more than 20 states, including major markets such as California, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
