Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia Capital has led the US$16-million Series A funding round in AMP Robotics, a Colorado-based provider of AI and robotics for the recycling industry.
In a statement, AMP Robotics, which was co-founded by James Bailey and Matanya Horowitz in 2015, said the fresh capital will be used to further scale its operations and develop new AI products that help improve the economics of recycling.
Sequoia now joins a consortium of investors that have poured money into AMP Robotics. Among them are BV, Closed Loop Partners, Congruent Ventures, and Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners.
AMP Robotics creates a scalable robotic system that reduces the cost of recycling and enables smart recycling facilities. Its platform automates the identification, sorting, and processing of material streams to extract the value of material recovery facilities.
It combines computer vision and machine learning with robots that can identify and rapidly pick recyclable materials off a conveyor belt for market and recovery.
In October, the company completed the install of fourteen AI-guided robots at Single Stream Recyclers in Florida, the single largest global deployment in the recycling industry. The robots are installed on a number of different sorting lines throughout the facility, processing plastics, cartons, fiber, metals, and other materials.
“We are excited to partner with AMP because their technology is changing the economics of the recycling industry,” said Shaun Maguire, partner at Sequoia.
As part of the investment, Maguire will join AMP’s board of directors, according to the statement.
AMP Robotics first raised US$150,000 in its seed round in January 2015 followed by another US$98,300 in May of the same year. Its venture round in 2017 raised US$3.2 million in 2017.
“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,” said Matanya Horowitz, co-founder and chief executive officer at AMP.
