Glacier, a San Francisco, CA-based recycling robotics company, raised $7.7m in funding.
The round was led by NEA and Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, with participation from AlleyCorp, Overture Climate VC, and VSC Ventures.
The company intends to use the funds for team expansion and development of its robots and to bolster its recycling capabilities, particularly in light of its recent collaboration with Amazon geared towards enhancing traceability and recovery processes for recyclable materials.
Led by Areeb Malik, and Rebecca Hu, Glacier develops AI-enabled robots, which streamline recyclable sorting while gathering real-time data on recycling streams for businesses. Utilizing advanced AI capabilities, Glacier can identify over 30 different materials, spanning from broad categories like plastic bottles and aluminum cans to specific items such as toothpaste tubes and cat food cans. Glacier’s robots effectively sort a similarly wide array of items, including challenging materials such as grocery bags and trash bags, which are notoriously difficult to sort using traditional recycling processes.
In the last year, the company was accepted into Elemental Excelerator’s 12th cohort, joining 15 startups dedicated to reimagining climate solutions across various sectors. Additionally, Glacier secured a significant grant from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, supported by The Recycling Partnership, the Carton Council, and the Foodservice Packaging Institute, to deploy several units in the Detroit area. With strategic partnerships, pilot programs, and ongoing deployments across the US, Glacier is dedicated to combating climate change one recyclable item at a time.
FinSMEs
06/03/2024