AMP Robotics, a leading player in the AI and robotics industry for waste management, has successfully secured $91 million in Series D funding. Based in Louisville, Colorado, the company plans to leverage this financial backing to accelerate the deployment of its AMP ONE systems, which utilize cutting-edge artificial intelligence and robotics to optimize the sorting of municipal solid waste (MSW).
Matanya Horowitz, the founder of AMP Robotics, highlighted the significance of this investment in addressing critical inefficiencies within the recycling sector. "Recycling rates have stagnated in the United States, despite the positive benefits recycling offers local economies and the environment," said Horowitz. "This latest investment enables us to tackle larger projects and deliver real outcomes for waste companies and municipalities – by lowering sortation costs, capturing more material value, diverting organic waste, and extending landfill life – all while helping the industry optimize its strategic assets."
Since its inception in 2014, AMP Robotics has emerged as a pioneer in AI-driven waste management solutions. The company's AI platform has reportedly identified 150 billion items and facilitated the sorting of more than 2.5 million tons of recyclables. With three full-scale facilities and over 400 AI systems deployed across North America, Asia, and Europe, AMP Robotics is working to modernize and transform the economics of resource recovery.
The core of AMP Robotics' technology lies in its AI software, which employs deep learning to continually train itself. By analyzing millions of images of materials, the AI can recognize patterns based on colors, textures, shapes, sizes, and logos. This enables real-time identification of recyclables and contaminants, paving the way for new offtake chemistries and capabilities.
Initially, the company's offerings focused on sorting robots that required minimal retrofitting for integration into existing recycling facilities. Over time, AMP Robotics has advanced its solutions to develop facilities that necessitate almost no manual sorting, ensuring reliability and providing what they describe as "pervasive data." The AMP ONE system stands as a full-scale facility solution to manage a variety of material streams, capturing value that would otherwise be lost to landfills or incineration.
A recent example of AMP ONE's effectiveness is its deployment at Recycling and Disposal Solutions in Portsmouth, Va., showcasing its capacity to cost-effectively process municipal solid waste. This facility handles 150 tons of local waste daily while maintaining over 90% uptime.
More recently, AMP Robotics formed a partnership with Waste Connections Inc., which involved equipping and managing a single-stream recycling facility in Colorado. "AMP provides meaningfully lower-cost, higher-performance systems to recover commodities and increase landfill diversion, and we’re uniquely positioned to reshape the waste and recycling landscape at a critical time," stated Tim Stuart, the newly appointed CEO of AMP Robotics.
This funding round was led by Congruent Ventures, with participation from both existing and new investors, including Sequoia Capital, XN, Blue Earth Capital, Liberty Mutual Investments, the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), Wellington Management, Range Ventures, and Tao Capital Partners. Congruent Ventures, known for its focus on early-stage ventures addressing climate and sustainability challenges, expressed confidence in AMP's potential to reshape waste management. "AMP’s AI sortation systems enable consumers to recycle both with and without curbside separation and communities to benefit from the recovery of recycled commodities while reducing dependence on landfills," noted Abe Yokell, co-founder and managing partner of Congruent Ventures.
With this substantial investment, AMP Robotics aims to drive significant advancements in sustainable materials management, ultimately diverting billions of tons of recyclable materials from landfills and helping to mitigate environmental impacts.
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