Futury Capital invests in Recyda — seed funding news

The Germany-based startup Recyda raises its first institutional funding with Futury Capital to accelerate its business. With the entire Futury Ecosystem behind them, the team developed their idea, prototyped their solution and now calls multiple big players in the consumer goods industry their clients.

The environmental impact of waste is significant with massive volumes being produced around the world and only a vanishingly small share that is (or can be) recycled. To fight the flood of packaging waste, Recyda developed a RECYclability DAtabase that centralizes information on the most important parameters for packaging recyclability at an international level.

THE FIRST ADVANCED RECYCLABILITY ASSESSMENT TOOL
Recyda helps companies along the packaging value chain assessing the recyclability of consumer goods packaging solutions. Specifically, the software tool consolidates research on country-specific recyclability to embed it into a web application with a comprehensive database and advanced packaging management features. By visualizing how changes in the packaging specifications affect recyclability, the tool allows brand owners, retailers, and packaging producers to align with country-specific requirements and optimize their impact to contribute to the circular economy.

THE STARTING POINT HAS BEEN ‘THE MISSION’
The three minds behind Recyda came together in September 2019 at ‘The Mission’, a large-scale initiative that was launched by Futury, Deutsche Bank, Bain & Company, Handelsblatt Media Group and PreZero to connect entrepreneurial talents and corporate partners to innovate together.

The first Mission ‘Waste — Be Circular!’ brought together 11 leading companies from the entire food industry value chain as well as 20 young talents from around the globe to jointly fight plastic waste.

For the three-month innovation program, Christian Knobloch, Anna Zießow and Vivian Loftin had been matched as a team to develop a world map for recycling envisioned by Huhtamaki as one of the program partners.

Coming from different backgrounds in technology, business, environmental sciences and international communication, the team members complemented each other and built a high-performing team with the shared vision to reduce waste: “With this amazing team, we can achieve anything”, says Christian Knobloch.

At Futury, the team benefited from an extensive network with market leaders and experts from the field to decisively build a solution and found their own business. After ‘The Mission’, the team spun off and managed to become self-funded through successful pilot projects and the validation of their first MVP
together with Schwarz Group, Huhtamaki, and Schur Flexibles.

“We still feel the spirit and drive that the Futury Team gave us, and we continue bringing the same energy into our team. This journey will help us to take the next steps and achieve even greater things together”, reflects Vivian Loftin.

In the end of 2020, the team launched their MVP — their customer base is growing, and the team constantly works on developing their SaaS tool further while recruiting their first working students and full-time employee directly from the Futury network.

RECYDA IS PART OF THE FUTURY ECOSYSTEM
With Futury Capital, Recyda raised its first external capital after frequent exchanges over the last two years. “We have known Recyda from the beginning, and it has been great to see the team’s progress after ‘The Mission’ as well as corporate partners from the pilot phase turning into their first paying customers. As first institutional investor, we are excited to now support the team even closer and grow their business together”, says Benjamin Krahmer, Managing Director at Futury Capital.

“At Futury, we can support young entrepreneurs all along their way, from forming an idea to accelerating a business. We are proud to see Recyda’s development during the last two years, enforcing their business and becoming an active part of our network by mentoring and inspiring our new teams“, adds Charlie Müller, Founder and Managing Director at Futury.

The story of Recyda accentuates the importance of a strong team, an innovation-driven mindset, cross- sector solutions and the continuous support of an ecosystem. “I am happy to carry on growing and turning ambitious ideas into reality. Now, we can make the next important step to achieve the world’s ccircular economy goals”, concludes Anna Zießow.

Find more information on: futurycapital.vc and futury.eu

About Recyda

• Founded from the Futury innovation project “Waste — Be Circular” in 2020 by Anna Zießow, Vivian Loftin, Christian Knobloch
• Collaboration with large companies from the consumer goods industry such as the Schwarz Group with Lidl and Kaufland
• Development of a SaaS solution for assessing the recyclability of packaging at an international scale for more transparency regarding international recycling requirements and country-specific waste infrastructure to transition to a circular economy of packaging
• Previously bootstrapped by customers and now the first seed round with Futury Capital to accelerate growth

Under the following links you will also find a selection of previous publications (in German) about Recyda:

• Handelsblatt
• Article “Founding in the pandemic — and then a spontaneous wedding”
• Article “There’s no study for being a founder”
• Article “Mountains of waste electrify company founders”
• Plastverarbeiter
• Article “Other countries, other regulations”
• Neue Verpackung
• Article “Optimising recyclability via software”
• Netzwerk Südbaden
• Article “Start-up Recyda: Where recycling takes place worldwide”