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Investment
We’re excited to welcome Replenysh. Founded by Mark Armen, Replenysh recently closed on an $8 million Series A round, led by M13, that includes Kindred Ventures and Floodgate.
Why we’re excited about Replenysh
Recycling is all about taking what is old and making it new again. However, only about 30% of recyclable waste in the U.S. is actually recycled. M13 partner Anna Barber says Replenysh is creating an entirely new market that doesn’t exist in today’s recycling supply chain. Simply put, founder Mark Armen has taken on the challenge of building a tracking and trading platform connecting everyone who’s involved in the market — from the bottling companies who want to reuse their materials to the businesses where those items are consumed.
The concept of recycling may seem straightforward, but to Mark Armen, recycling takes a lot of twists and turns. Take, for example, news from last December where CBS journalists tracked where Starbucks’ recyclables actually ended up. Spoiler: most of the plastic cups did not even make it into recycling bins.
California-based Replenysh is out to change that with an enterprise-level circularity platform that Armen claims is the industry's first fully traceable network that seamlessly integrates into a company’s supply chain and captures data at each step in a product’s journey.
The company officially launched in summer 2020 when it raised $2 million in venture capital funding in a round led by Kindred Ventures, Floodgate Fund and 122WEST.
Now four years later, Armen has not only raised nearly $10 million in venture capital funding but also got big brands like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Walmart on board to build out their circularity programs.
Many of those big brands are trying to reimagine their supply chain and get more recycled materials into their supply chain, Armen said. The problem? They can't get their hands on enough of it.
“This is a supply chain play,” Armen said. “With circularity, you can turn today's trash industry into tomorrow's commodity exchange or tomorrow's supply chain. Then we will consistently reuse materials and go from a society and economy that just wastes and pollutes to a regenerative society and an economy that just reuses our materials. That’s a much more intelligent system.”
Connecting the supply chain dots
Armen says there are four “dots” that need connecting: brands, suppliers, operators and mills. The company built a parallel supply chain to address this. The core technology is connecting the supply side — those collecting something — with a local recycler that picks up the materials.
Then that is connected to the mill, which buys the material, cleans it up and reformats it to be sold on to brands. The company is also connecting retailers with recycling centers and tracking that material back into the brand supply chain.
To put it into perspective, only around 40% of aluminum cans are recovered annually, which means 60% are going into the landfill, Armen said. He estimates that’s over $1.5 billion in aluminum going into the ground every year.
This happens because the system the materials move through is broken and not transparent, he said. That’s why we are seeing news like that about Starbucks and Walmart, which tracked its supposedly recycled plastic bags to Southeast Asia.
“We have two problems right now: The first problem is that we landfill a lot of materials,” Armen said. “Then the stuff that we don't landfill, that currently gets recycled, is moved in a trash infrastructure that is not trusted, and there's no transparency.”
That’s why Armen is very blunt about where he wants to take Replenysh: “I want to put landfills out of business,” he said.
It’s also why he’s leading Replenysh to evolve from a recycling sustainability company to a supply chain resiliency company based on circularity and intelligence.
That passion was certainly what excited M13 partner Anna Barber about working with Armen and Replenysh.
Including his bottling company background, Armen has a unique ability to understand the needs of each link in the chain and every player in the category, Barber said. This has then helped Replenysh build a product to provide a way all of those players can come together and engage in the recycling supply chain in a way that works for them. “It's really about stitching all the pieces together in a way that reflects how people actually work and want to transact,” she said.
“I have rarely met such a founder with such a singular focus on solving a problem and such deep understanding of all the players involved,” she added. “Mark is a tremendous thought leader in the space, and he's the type of person who comes at the problem with a huge sense of optimism, which you need in order to try something so massive. It's inspiring, and when you meet him, you instantly want to roll up your sleeves to help him grow this platform.”
From cleaning up the beach to learning about bottle supply chains
When it comes to passion for the circular economy, Armen is probably not like any person you’ve ever met. He grew up learning the ins-and-outs of the bottling industry from his family. Being a Southern California kid, he grew up body surfing in the ocean and, in his words, became obsessed with the ocean.
“I remember my cousin once asking me why I would start picking up plastic and trash in the sand,” Armen said. “I was just a little kid at the time and didn’t really have a good answer, but that evolved into crushing cans in my parent’s garage and taking them to the redemption center with my dad and getting paid for all those aluminum cans that I crushed.”
One of his first jobs was working in his family’s bottling company, which worked with clients like Costco and Total Wine. It was there that he learned about the supply chain — how bottles come in empty, are filled, and go out. Armen recalls wondering what happens to the bottles after that: were they going into the landfill, the ocean?
“I was always curious about the negative externalities of today's commerce, and how do you drive innovative solutions to rectify or remedy the negative externalities of today's commercial world,” he said.
That curiosity took him to business school in Madrid and back to California, when he took a job with recycling company Greenopolis and was one of the company’s early employees. The company was purchased by Waste Management in 2009, and Armen worked for them for about three years placing recycling machines across the United States.
These machines were like reverse vending machines: You would walk up to the machine, put in your identification, and then insert your water bottles or aluminum cans. Those materials would go back into, for example, PepsiCo’s supply chain.
What Armen learned was that waste companies weren’t necessarily motivated to empty the recycling machines. And if they did empty them, they mixed the materials, which then had to be sorted back at the facility. This didn’t always ensure that the materials were getting back into PepsiCo’s supply chain.
“Large brands wanted to reimagine their supply chain but at the time their only solution was waste companies,” Armen said. “I thought there was a huge opportunity to connect the dots here — to create software to connect the dots.”
The future of recycling in America
Meanwhile, the environment was a big project for the Biden Administration, including addressing plastic pollution and grants to advance recycling. Though there have been some movements in the Trump Administration so far as it relates to the Environmental Protection Agency, it’s still too early to say how policy will be shaped about recycling.
A handful of states, including California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington have passed recycled content laws. They are mandating things like companies having a certain amount of recycled materials in their product, and making manufacturers responsible for recycling and reusing their own products.
Over the years, Replenysh itself worked with some midwestern and southeastern states, including Oklahoma, where it is working with PepsiCo and Walmart to recycle beverage containers; Florida, where it has an aluminum recycling pilot; a plastic bottle recycling project with BlueTriton in Mississippi; and a Cans for Cash program in Arkansas.
More recently, it is productizing more as a result of those earlier projects, and is focusing on key markets, starting with Southern California. This includes launching a Replenysh vs Recycling Calculator in December, which is a tool to help calculate how much someone could be earning or saving by using Replenysh.
"We’ve built a data-driven material recovery grid that predicts and activates recycled supply that would otherwise be landfilled,” Armen said. “Now, we're laser-focused on scaling this transformation zip code by zip code — creating a digital infrastructure that gives brands control over their circular supply chain while delivering increased volume and quality for our network partners. We're not just improving recycling, we're rebuilding the entire system from the ground up.”
Read more about Mark Armen
Recycling is to Diversion as Circularity is to Destination
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjarmen/
Follow Replenysh
Investment
We’re excited to welcome Replenysh. Founded by Mark Armen, Replenysh recently closed on an $8 million Series A round, led by M13, that includes Kindred Ventures and Floodgate.
Why we’re excited about Replenysh
Recycling is all about taking what is old and making it new again. However, only about 30% of recyclable waste in the U.S. is actually recycled. M13 partner Anna Barber says Replenysh is creating an entirely new market that doesn’t exist in today’s recycling supply chain. Simply put, founder Mark Armen has taken on the challenge of building a tracking and trading platform connecting everyone who’s involved in the market — from the bottling companies who want to reuse their materials to the businesses where those items are consumed.
The concept of recycling may seem straightforward, but to Mark Armen, recycling takes a lot of twists and turns. Take, for example, news from last December where CBS journalists tracked where Starbucks’ recyclables actually ended up. Spoiler: most of the plastic cups did not even make it into recycling bins.
California-based Replenysh is out to change that with an enterprise-level circularity platform that Armen claims is the industry's first fully traceable network that seamlessly integrates into a company’s supply chain and captures data at each step in a product’s journey.
The company officially launched in summer 2020 when it raised $2 million in venture capital funding in a round led by Kindred Ventures, Floodgate Fund and 122WEST.
Now four years later, Armen has not only raised nearly $10 million in venture capital funding but also got big brands like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Walmart on board to build out their circularity programs.
Many of those big brands are trying to reimagine their supply chain and get more recycled materials into their supply chain, Armen said. The problem? They can't get their hands on enough of it.
“This is a supply chain play,” Armen said. “With circularity, you can turn today's trash industry into tomorrow's commodity exchange or tomorrow's supply chain. Then we will consistently reuse materials and go from a society and economy that just wastes and pollutes to a regenerative society and an economy that just reuses our materials. That’s a much more intelligent system.”
Connecting the supply chain dots
Armen says there are four “dots” that need connecting: brands, suppliers, operators and mills. The company built a parallel supply chain to address this. The core technology is connecting the supply side — those collecting something — with a local recycler that picks up the materials.
Then that is connected to the mill, which buys the material, cleans it up and reformats it to be sold on to brands. The company is also connecting retailers with recycling centers and tracking that material back into the brand supply chain.
To put it into perspective, only around 40% of aluminum cans are recovered annually, which means 60% are going into the landfill, Armen said. He estimates that’s over $1.5 billion in aluminum going into the ground every year.
This happens because the system the materials move through is broken and not transparent, he said. That’s why we are seeing news like that about Starbucks and Walmart, which tracked its supposedly recycled plastic bags to Southeast Asia.
“We have two problems right now: The first problem is that we landfill a lot of materials,” Armen said. “Then the stuff that we don't landfill, that currently gets recycled, is moved in a trash infrastructure that is not trusted, and there's no transparency.”
That’s why Armen is very blunt about where he wants to take Replenysh: “I want to put landfills out of business,” he said.
It’s also why he’s leading Replenysh to evolve from a recycling sustainability company to a supply chain resiliency company based on circularity and intelligence.
That passion was certainly what excited M13 partner Anna Barber about working with Armen and Replenysh.
Including his bottling company background, Armen has a unique ability to understand the needs of each link in the chain and every player in the category, Barber said. This has then helped Replenysh build a product to provide a way all of those players can come together and engage in the recycling supply chain in a way that works for them. “It's really about stitching all the pieces together in a way that reflects how people actually work and want to transact,” she said.
“I have rarely met such a founder with such a singular focus on solving a problem and such deep understanding of all the players involved,” she added. “Mark is a tremendous thought leader in the space, and he's the type of person who comes at the problem with a huge sense of optimism, which you need in order to try something so massive. It's inspiring, and when you meet him, you instantly want to roll up your sleeves to help him grow this platform.”
From cleaning up the beach to learning about bottle supply chains
When it comes to passion for the circular economy, Armen is probably not like any person you’ve ever met. He grew up learning the ins-and-outs of the bottling industry from his family. Being a Southern California kid, he grew up body surfing in the ocean and, in his words, became obsessed with the ocean.
“I remember my cousin once asking me why I would start picking up plastic and trash in the sand,” Armen said. “I was just a little kid at the time and didn’t really have a good answer, but that evolved into crushing cans in my parent’s garage and taking them to the redemption center with my dad and getting paid for all those aluminum cans that I crushed.”
One of his first jobs was working in his family’s bottling company, which worked with clients like Costco and Total Wine. It was there that he learned about the supply chain — how bottles come in empty, are filled, and go out. Armen recalls wondering what happens to the bottles after that: were they going into the landfill, the ocean?
“I was always curious about the negative externalities of today's commerce, and how do you drive innovative solutions to rectify or remedy the negative externalities of today's commercial world,” he said.
That curiosity took him to business school in Madrid and back to California, when he took a job with recycling company Greenopolis and was one of the company’s early employees. The company was purchased by Waste Management in 2009, and Armen worked for them for about three years placing recycling machines across the United States.
These machines were like reverse vending machines: You would walk up to the machine, put in your identification, and then insert your water bottles or aluminum cans. Those materials would go back into, for example, PepsiCo’s supply chain.
What Armen learned was that waste companies weren’t necessarily motivated to empty the recycling machines. And if they did empty them, they mixed the materials, which then had to be sorted back at the facility. This didn’t always ensure that the materials were getting back into PepsiCo’s supply chain.
“Large brands wanted to reimagine their supply chain but at the time their only solution was waste companies,” Armen said. “I thought there was a huge opportunity to connect the dots here — to create software to connect the dots.”
The future of recycling in America
Meanwhile, the environment was a big project for the Biden Administration, including addressing plastic pollution and grants to advance recycling. Though there have been some movements in the Trump Administration so far as it relates to the Environmental Protection Agency, it’s still too early to say how policy will be shaped about recycling.
A handful of states, including California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington have passed recycled content laws. They are mandating things like companies having a certain amount of recycled materials in their product, and making manufacturers responsible for recycling and reusing their own products.
Over the years, Replenysh itself worked with some midwestern and southeastern states, including Oklahoma, where it is working with PepsiCo and Walmart to recycle beverage containers; Florida, where it has an aluminum recycling pilot; a plastic bottle recycling project with BlueTriton in Mississippi; and a Cans for Cash program in Arkansas.
More recently, it is productizing more as a result of those earlier projects, and is focusing on key markets, starting with Southern California. This includes launching a Replenysh vs Recycling Calculator in December, which is a tool to help calculate how much someone could be earning or saving by using Replenysh.
"We’ve built a data-driven material recovery grid that predicts and activates recycled supply that would otherwise be landfilled,” Armen said. “Now, we're laser-focused on scaling this transformation zip code by zip code — creating a digital infrastructure that gives brands control over their circular supply chain while delivering increased volume and quality for our network partners. We're not just improving recycling, we're rebuilding the entire system from the ground up.”
Read more about Mark Armen
Recycling is to Diversion as Circularity is to Destination
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjarmen/
Follow Replenysh
Read more
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