Glacier, a six-year-old company focused on innovative recycling solutions, recently announced the successful completion of a $16 million Series A funding round. The investment will enable the company to expand its fleet of robotic arms, which utilize advanced computer vision technology to efficiently sort materials at recycling facilities.
Glacier was created with a mission to improve and evolve the waste and recycling processes. These innovations include cost effective robotic arms and computer vision that can detect over 30 types of materials. These small robots are finely tuned to operate inside MRFs. Additionally, they are a key resource to consumer products companies and federal, state and local government agencies that manage waste.
Glacier offers its robotic solutions to customers through two different models: outright purchases and a lease-to-own option. This kind of flexibility enables a wide range of organizations to pursue the technology that best aligns with their financial strategies. Glacier is about more than cool robots. Through their data product, users are empowered with the data-driven insights to optimize their waste streams.
Politico noted that the company has already deployed its robots in some of those cities including Austin. These cities were San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Phoenix and Seattle. These deployments are sorely needed, as MRFs are on the frontlines of a crisis.
These challenges were highlighted by Rebecca Hu-Thrams, co-founder and CEO of Glacier, as she discussed the challenges MRFs face in a competitive marketplace.
“Materials recovery facilities are getting squeezed on both ends,” – Rebecca Hu-Thrams, Glacier’s co-founder and CEO.
Further emphasizing the need for effective sorting solutions is the high demand for sorted advanced technology in waste management. Not only do Glacier’s robotic arms remove some of the heavy lifting from human workers, they are faster and more accurate in sorting. Hu-Thrams also stated the often exploitative labor conditions in the high-sorting world of traditional recycling.
“Would you rather stand at a conveyor belt and sort through people’s trash, or would you rather be lifting boxes in an air-conditioned warehouse?” – Rebecca Hu-Thrams, Glacier’s co-founder and CEO.
Areeb Malik, Glacier’s CTO and second co-founder, shared how their AI systems performed. He mentioned that their technology’s accuracy is much higher than what a human audit can achieve.
“Every time we send people to audit our AI systems, the people just do so much worse,” – Areeb Malik, Glacier’s CTO and second co-founder.
With the recent funding, Glacier looks to expand its production capacity and deepen its technological offerings. The firm is increasingly focused on improving recycling operations. In addition to furthering our goal of promoting greener environmental practices, this push addresses the growing need for more sustainable waste management alternatives.
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