Equipment Report

Amp Robotics receives $16M in series A funding

Amp Robotics Corp., Louisville, Colorado, has announced that it has raised $16 million in series A funding led by Menlo Park, California-based Sequoia Capital with participation from previous investors.

According to Amp, the company will use this latest funding to further scale operations and develop new artificial intelligence (AI) products that help improve the economics of recycling. As part of the investment, Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia, will join Amp’s board of directors.

“We are excited to partner with Amp because their technology is changing the economics of the recycling industry,” Maguire says. “Over the last few years, the industry has had their margins squeezed by labor shortages and low commodity prices. The end result is an industry proactively searching for cost-saving alternatives and added opportunities to increase revenue by capturing more high-value recyclables, and Amp is emerging as the leading solution.”

To address the challenges with recycling, Amp commercialized its Amp Cortex high-speed robotics system that automates the identification and sorting of municipal recyclables, e-scrap and construction and demolition debris. According to the company, Amp’s robots can sort material twice as fast as human sorters with much greater accuracy.

The Amp Neuron AI platform guides the robots to perform sorting tasks, applying computer vision and machine learning to recognize different colors, textures, shapes, sizes, patterns and brands to identify material characteristics. The AI platform transforms millions of images into data, digitizing the material stream and capturing data on what goes in and out, so informed decisions can be made about operations and performance.

“Our new partners at Sequoia have a history of building category-defining businesses, and we are deeply excited to be executing on this vision with their experience, along with our existing world-class consortium of investors,” says Matanya Horowitz, founder and CEO at Amp.

In addition to Sequoia, Amp’s investors are Boston-based BV Investment Partners, New York-based Closed Loop Partners, San Francisco-based Congruent Ventures and Toronto-based Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP). SIP is a new technology-enabled infrastructure company that spun out of Sidewalk Labs—one of the largest seed investors in Amp Robotics—that is backed by Alphabet Inc. and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Rotochopper partners with Lindner

Rotochopper Inc., based in St. Martin, Minnesota, has announced a new partnership agreement with Spittal an der Drau, Austria-based Lindner Recycling Inc. Under the new agreement, Rotochopper will offer sales representation and service support for the DK and Atlas models of the Lindner shredder product lines.

“Rotochopper’s knowledgeable sales and service teams have been working with customers in the wood waste and C&D markets for over 30 years,” says Jamey Brick, chief operating officer at Rotochopper. “We are excited to offer these customers a durable and high-performance shredder from Lindner that will present additional capability to accommodate waste with higher contamination.”

Lindner Recycling was founded in 1948. With three production facilities in Austria and more than 300 employees worldwide, Lindner’s product portfolio ranges from stationary and mobile shredders for waste management to complete systems for plastic and wood recycling.

Lindner’s Atlas line of primary shredders features an electric belt drive. The mobile DK series features a twin-rotor cutting system.

“We are excited about this partnership because both companies keep things simple,” Rotochopper CEO Tosh Brinkerhoff says. “We both focus on producing high-quality machines and taking care of the customer after the sale. This similar approach makes the foundation strong for a win-win relationship. Most importantly, it provides us with the opportunity to support our customers who have a need for this type of equipment in their operations.”