Austin's Smarter Sorting lands $17M in new funding

Austin-based Smarter Sorting, which uses AI to help customers reuse or recycle consumer products, has raised $17 million for expansion.

The company has developed a technology platform that gives municipalities, retailers and waste management companies the ability to identify, categorize, sort and reuse regulated products such as aerosols and paint.

That means chemical products that would have been incinerated as waste can be turned into new products or recycled.

Smarter Sorting says its customers save money both in employee hours needed to sort the waste and in the actual process itself.

An estimated 1.4 billion pounds of consumer chemical products are incinerated as waste every year, according to the company.

Smarter Sorting was founded in 2015 by entrepreneurs Charlie Vallely and Chris Ripley.

Ripley said that "by understanding items down to their chemical level and building software designed to optimize and simplify use of advanced data, we enable retailers and other stakeholders to sustainably and accountably handle products. By doing so, we are creating a brand new era of responsible commerce."

US Ecology, a leading regulated waste treatment and disposal company, was the lead investor in the deal. Other participants included RTP Ventures and a group of independent industry experts, the company said.

Smarter Sorting said that to meet its goal of cutting retail regulated waste by 50 percent it is integrating its operations with those of US Ecology.

In 2018, Smarter Sorting received $5 million to invest in machine learning technology that has allowed it to create a smart chemical database. The 38-person company has raised a total of $24.8 million.

Smarter Sorting's platform is currently being used by 15 municipalities across the country including the cities of Austin, Portland, Ore., Salt Lake City, Boulder, Colo. and Tempe, Ariz.

Canada Tire is the company's largest retail customer and US Ecology will now be its largest corporate customer and partner.