Recycling plants are expensive but increasingly urgent, as Europe’s waste pile grows. These processing facilities are also, for the most part, still being designed in Excel.
Due to an overreliance on CAD files and spreadsheets, a typical facility takes four months to engineer before a single piece of equipment is specified, according to Laura Rodríguez Álvarez, a mechanical engineer and CEO and co-founder of Spanish startup Humara.
Founded in 2021, Humara has developed an AI-powered software stack for recycling plants. The platform simulates 82 distinct waste materials through real separation equipment, purportedly cutting design time from months to days. It also recently expanded its software offering to cover plant operations as well.
More than 250 plants across Europe and Latin America have been designed using the platform, according to Humara, with customers including Veolia, FCC, PreZero, and Ecoembes reporting cost savings of over 70%.
Today, the startup announced it has secured €1.2m in seed funding to keep growing. Belgium-based impact VC Impact Shakers led the round.
Barcelona’s Inclimo Climate Fund joined the round as a new investor. Existing backers Zubi Capital, Ship2B Ventures, and Humara's angel syndicate all followed on.
"The process is so old school, manual, Excel and CAD based – this was really an industry ripe for disruption," Impact Shaker's founding partner Alina Klarner tells Impact Loop over the phone.
"The team comes from the industry, has lived it, has done the work, understands the customer, has been the customer," she says.
Impact Shakers runs two vehicles: a micro fund for early-stage bets and a venture fund that held its final close earlier this year at €16.5m.
Humara is its 16th portfolio company from the venture fund, which targets pre-seed rounds across climate tech and inclusion tech, with a stated focus on diverse founding teams.
Impact Shakers is targetting at least 8 more investments this year, according to Klarner.