The archive · Climate & Energy · Strategic decision · 2019–2026
Greyparrot bets cameras make waste measurable; $27M Series B after 1T detections
London startup's AI cameras count every object on recycling lines, turning waste into data regulators and brands now pay for.
Greyparrot
What the business is
London-based AI waste-intelligence company that mounts camera systems above conveyor belts in recycling facilities to identify each object's material, product and brand in real time, selling the analytics to waste operators and consumer-goods companies.
Starting capital：$27M Series B led by technology investor Omar Mir, announced July 28, 2026, bringing total funding to $60M.
How it started
Greyparrot was founded in London in 2019 by Mikela Druckman, Ambarish Mitra and Nikola Sivacki on the observation that you cannot manage what you cannot measure: the waste sector runs a roughly $2 trillion industry on manual sampling that covers less than 0.1% of the material passing through it, so every recovery and packaging decision was guesswork.
What happened
Greyparrot's Analyzer camera systems now sit above sorting lines in recovery facilities across more than 20 countries, identifying objects in real time. Customers such as Veolia, Biffa, SUEZ, WM and Circular Services use the data to lift recovery rates, with the company reporting 10-30% efficiency gains and one site saving over $2M in a year. Consumer-goods companies Unilever, L'Oréal and Kenvue use its Deepnest platform to redesign packaging based on what happens after disposal. In early 2026 the UK's Environment Agency accepted AI-generated waste composition data from Greyparrot for statutory compliance reporting, which the company says was a first.
How it ended up
Still scaling: the Series B funds expansion across North America and Europe and growth of its AI and data teams, with a stated goal of helping recover more than one million tonnes of waste by 2030.
Background
Greyparrot is a London-based AI waste-intelligence company founded in 2019 by Mikela Druckman, Ambarish Mitra and Nikola Sivacki. Its Analyzer camera systems sit above conveyor belts in recycling facilities and identify every object's material, product and brand in real time, giving operators continuous data on what is actually moving through their plants.
The founding bet was measurement itself: the waste sector runs a roughly $2 trillion industry on manual sampling that covers less than 0.1% of material flows, so recovery decisions, packaging redesigns and policy were built on almost no data. Greyparrot argued that once you can measure a material you can recover, trade and invest in it, turning the circular economy from an ambition into infrastructure.
By July 2026 the platform had passed one trillion waste detections across facilities in more than 20 countries. Recycling customers including Veolia, Biffa, SUEZ, WM and Circular Services use the data to improve recovery, with Greyparrot reporting 10-30% efficiency gains and one site saving over $2M in a single year. Consumer-goods brands Unilever, L'Oréal and Kenvue use its Deepnest platform to see how their packaging performs after disposal, supporting compliance with Extended Producer Responsibility rules and the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.
The regulatory shift made visibility an obligation rather than an advantage: in early 2026 the UK's Environment Agency accepted AI-generated waste composition data from Greyparrot for statutory compliance reporting, described as a first. The company raised a $27M Series B led by technology investor Omar Mir in July 2026, bringing total funding to $60M, to expand across North America and Europe and work toward recovering more than one million tonnes of waste by 2030.
What has to be true
- Manual sampling covers under 0.1% of waste flows, so real-time measurement was an open wedge rather than a crowded market.
- One dataset serves three buyers - operators improving recovery, brands redesigning packaging, and regulators needing evidence.
- EPR and the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation turned optional analytics into compliance infrastructure.
- Each new camera feeds a shared dataset, so accuracy and switching costs rise as the network grows.
What can be applied
In a fragmented physical industry, make the invisible measurable first: cameras plus AI created a data product that operators, brands and regulators all needed, before any sorting robot existed.
Aftermath
As of early September 2026 Greyparrot is scaling on its July 2026 $27M Series B led by Omar Mir, bringing total funding to $60M. Its AI has analysed over one trillion waste objects in more than 20 countries, with the Analyzer network expanding across North America and Europe. Recycling customers include Veolia, Biffa, SUEZ, WM and Circular Services; Unilever, L'Oréal and Kenvue use Deepnest for packaging data. The UK Environment Agency's acceptance of its AI data for statutory reporting in early 2026 remains a first, and Greyparrot targets one million tonnes of waste recovered by 2030.
Sources
- Greyparrot secures $27M Series B to scale AI waste intelligence for the circular economy
- Announcing Series B, reaching 1 trillion detections, a milestone moment!
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