Tech firm Sorted raises funds for AI MRF picking

This article was written by Mark Smulian and initially published in MRW on April 23rd, 2024.

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Recycling technology business Sorted has raised £1.65m in seed funding for its work in helping pickers to better sort materials by using computer vision, spectroscopy and coloured lasers driven by artificial intelligence (AI).

The company said the process identifies, differentiates and pinpoints valuable items on recycling lines, and could improve residual waste recovery by more than half by finding items that would otherwise have gone to energy-from-waste.

Sorted was co-founded in 2022 by Arthur Goujon and Luis Espinosa. Goujon was formerly head of digital at Suez.

Goujon said: “Our mission is to help waste management companies sort their waste more effectively and maximise recovery of recyclable materials through aiding MRFs and plastic recovery facilities in improving their workforce efficiency.

“We use AI to augment and better enable human pickers. Our UK pilots show increased revenue and performance as well as reduced costs through using Sorted’s technology. “

The funding was raised in a round led by Pi Labs. Other investors included Archipelago Ventures, the Circular Plastics Accelerator, Conduit Connect and Antler.

Fred Stinchcombe, production regional manager at Suez UK, said: “The biggest challenge we have right now is continuously adapting what we do to what brings the most value – either reducing residual waste or achieving higher quality output – but without having to redesign our plants.

“Sorted is tackling exactly that. The team understands our operation and is leveraging technology in a pragmatic way to start adding value from the start.”

Claire Shrewsbury, director of insights and innovations at WRAP, said: “Capturing valuable materials at end-of-life for remanufacture helps to reduce the pressure on virgin resources and emissions. Sorted is a company that will be key to the recycling sector capturing more valuable material, and the Circular Plastics Accelerator is pleased to support its important expansion.

“Technology solutions which can achieve scale quickly are critical to the sector’s ability to adapt in the near term. By enhancing and augmenting the ability of the workforce to get more material out of existing waste streams, we can see barriers to market entry being significantly reduced.”

The Circular Plastics Accelerator is funded by the Accelerating Growth Fund, a subsidiary of WRAP developed in partnership with Archipelago Ventures.