Waste Management Service for businesses UpBox attracts Series B investment

Korean startup Reco, the operator of ‘UpBox,’ a total waste collection and transportation service, has attracted 14.5 billion won ($11 million) in Series B bridge round investment.

In this bridge round, existing investors GS and Invisioning Partners participated as follow-up investors, and CAC Partners and the Industrial Bank of Korea joined as new investors. As a result, Reco’s cumulative investment attraction has exceeded 30 billion won($24 million).

UpBox, launched in 2020, has maintained solid growth, which has positively affected this investment. Reco is expanding its customer group and waste types, accelerating its growth rate, with sales exceeding three-fold compared to last year’s period.

An official from CAC Partners, who jointly led this round with GS, said, “The existing waste collection, transportation and treatment business tends to rely on human networks by relying on the traditional sales network, and as a result, the organic connection between emission, collection, transportation and treatment is difficult,” he added, “We paid attention to the fact that the UpBox solution not only builds an online and offline cooperation system with customers but also provides the value of improving social waste treatment efficiency by providing optimal treatment solutions.”

Reco plans to use this investment to upgrade the UpBox service. Upbox is a waste management service exclusively for business sites. It provides waste consulting services for each business site so that separate discharge, common at home, can be performed smoothly at the business site and is also responsible for resource recovery. About 3,000 customers are using the UpBox service, and the new investment will be used to develop optimal waste resource circulation services for each industry and business size.

In addition, the waste management software ‘UpBox Cloud’ will be strengthened. UpBox Cloud, a customer-only software, will be expanded into a comprehensive circulating resource platform that encompasses the entire waste value chain, including emitters, transporters, and processors.

Kim Geun-ho, CEO of Reco, said, “We are providing services to 3,000 corporate customers, the largest for a single waste brand, within three years of launching the service, and we are experiencing a rapid increase in the demand for resource circulation in society and businesses. Through attracting investment, we will become a company that leads the transition to a circular economy society with more complete services.”

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