Earlier this month, ReCellular, a cell-phone recycling firm with headquarters in Dexter, Michigan, announced that Investor Growth Capital (IGC) invested $15 million in a Series A Preferred Stock financing. In connection with this investment, Noah Walley and Albert Kim will join ReCellular’s board of directors. IGC is the wholly-owned venture capital group of Sweden-based Investor AB.
"Our goal was to develop a profitable company that was socially and environmentally responsible," said ReCellular CEO Chuck Newman. "Through the dedication of a talented team of people, ReCellular has exceeded all expectations. With IGC’s support and investment, we will dramatically expand the company and set the standard for success in electronics-sustainability and clean-tech operations."
According to the company, its growth plans include:
- Expanding operations, opening new office facilities, consolidating processing facilities, and significantly increasing the number of Michigan employees
- Rapidly increasing phone collections, focusing on direct-to-consumer and trade-in partnerships, and building consumer awareness of the benefits of cell phone recycling
- Evaluating strategic acquisitions of other electronics recycling businesses that could complement ReCellular’s expertise and operations
"We processed almost 5,000 phones in our first year of business," said Newman. "Today, we get an average of 24,000 phones – enough to fill seven mail trucks – every day, five days a week. With the support and resources of IGC, we see the potential to double the number of mail trucks delivering to ReCellular in the very near future."
"We see tremendous growth potential in ReCellular," says Albert Kim, Vice President of IGC. "They have revolutionized the electronics-sustainability industry by providing a convenient solution for consumers to recycle their used handsets, while at the same time extracting enough value from these phones to build a successful business. We have investigated many clean-tech companies, including many in the cell phone recycling arena, and we felt that ReCellular was clearly the world’s most promising cell phone reuse and recycling firm."
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