Irish company Eiravato has raised €550,000 in funding to help companies turn their waste into profit, eliminating the need to send it to landfill and making their supply chains more efficient.
The international software service company has developed waste management software and a platform that links companies with potential buyers for waste products and surplus resources from its business.
The money was raised from Enterprise Ireland and private investors, and will be used to develop the platform further and scale the business to offer its services globally. Of the current funding round, €300,000 came from private investors and €250,000 from Enterprise Ireland through its high potential start-up funding.
It’s a move away from treating waste as “nuisance” and towards a more sustainable model for the future.
Circular economy
"We want to try to capture and sell it as reusable material in our global marketplace," said co-founder Marcin Kulik. He established the business in 2015 with Steve Cassidy to tap into the growing circular economy, which is estimated to grow to €4 trillion by 2030.
“About 6.3 billion tonnes of potentially valuable material is being lost,” said Mr Kulik. “That’s before you think about pollution.”
One of the key things about the Eiravato platform is that it creates a consistent supply of quality material for customers, free of contamination that would render the product useless. The system uses artificial intelligence and big data to connect waste producers and potential buyers.
The company currently works with public and private organisations across sectors such as manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, retail and corporate offices. “We have a number of companies signed up , and have worked with them for a while so we have a proven model that works,” Mr Kulik said.
He said the company’s ideal customers were manufacturing companies and multisite organisations wishing to implement the circular economy to eliminate waste, help the environment and exceed government regulations.
Commercialise
He said many companies could trade up to 50 per cent of their waste on the Eiravato Exchange within 12 months.
“Our ambition is to help our clients to achieve zero waste to landfill and to maximise the value of their waste by trading it on the materials market exchange,” said Mr Kulik.
At present, Eiravato’s platform is aimed at larger firms that will be able to look after the logistics of shipping the waste themselves. However, there are plans in the future to bring smaller suppliers into the mix, with plans for a partnership with existing waste companies to help process the products.
Eiravato sees a number of opportunities to commercialise the enterprise, from licence fees for its software as a service model to commission from trading and fees for its advisory services.
Mr Kulik said the firm was expecting to return for further funding next year and in 2020 to increase its scale in Europe and the US, develop the next generation of technology and evolve its advisory and services capabilities.
