Molg, which is developing technology to recycle e-waste, has announced the closing of a $5.5 million seed round led by New York-based Closed Loop Partners’ Ventures Group. Other participants included Techstars, Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, ABB Robotics & Automation Ventures, Los Angeles-based Overture Climate and Hawaii’s Elemental Impact.
The Chantilly, Va.-based startup was co-founded in 2021 by Rob Lawson-Shanks and Mark Lyons, the duo that built the smart-nutrition LifeFuels hydration water bottle at their previous startup. Molg has built microfactories — two-meter cubes with robotic arms — that can precisely harvest recyclable components from laptops and servers.
Flagship Microfactories
“This funding will allow us to scale our robotic microfactories and increase our capacity to meet the growing demand for sustainable electronics solutions,” Lawson-Shanks, Molg’s CEO said in a LinkedIn post. “At Molg, we believe that achieving true circularity requires rethinking design and leveraging dynamic automation to keep valuable components and materials in circulation.”
Closed Loop Partners’ Aly Bryan said the circularity-focused firm invested in Molg because it addresses a historically overlooked source of valuable resources, and additionally targeting critical materials that can be recovered from electronics.
“Their process maximizes the value of recovered materials and allows for local recovery where materials are most needed — important parts of advancing the circular economy,” said Bryan. “They are helping to unlock a scalable solution that not only reduces environmental impact but also strengthens supply chains by recovering materials domestically.”
‘Circularity Needs Rethink’
Over $62 billion worth of critical minerals and precious metals are left unrecovered within electronics waste, according to Molg. Citing the U.N. Global E-waste Monitor, the company said only 22.3% of e-waste was recycled in 2022.
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“Achieving true circularity requires a fundamental shift in the underlying systems that support demanufacturing. It starts with better design and is enabled by dynamic automation,” Lawson-Shanks said, adding that Molg’s founding team brings firsthand knowledge of design, production and recovery processes, and over a decade’s experience in consumer electronics manufacturing.
Molg plans to use the funding to expand capacity at its Northern Virginia manufacturing facility that builds its flagship microfactories. It has already installed robotic disassembly microfactories at Sims Lifecycle Services and is rolling out similar facilities to leading hyperscalers. Molg also works on circular design with leading companies like HP, Dell and ABB Robotics & Automation Ventures.
“The AI boom and rapid expansion of data centers is coinciding with an energy transition that demands an immense supply of critical minerals. Molg helps hyperscalers and electronics manufacturers tap into the supply of retired servers and other e-waste that still contain immense material value,” said Shomik Datta, Overture Climate’s managing partner. “Molg’s robotic solution not only moves the industry towards circularity; it presents a supply that is cheaper and more domestically secure.”
