Recycling startup bags $16.5M in funding as ewaste piles up in a gadget-loving India

There are two sides to the narrowing of the digital divide: on the negative side is exponential growth of electronic waste in emerging countries.

Ewaste in India is estimated to reach 1.72 million metric tonnes (PDF link) by 2020, as growing consumption of electronics goes hand in hand with faster discard rates. Yet, most of its disposal and recycling is unorganized, resulting in pollution.

Roorkee-based Attero Recycling attempts to fill that gap. This Indian startup, which offers end-to-end ewaste recycling solutions, just announced an INR 100 crore (US$16.5 million) series C round of funding.

“Attero has been working to formalize the informal sector, which handles a major portion of ewaste in India. The aim is to train informal sector workers and establish a last-mile ewaste collection channel, which will divert e-waste to the formal sector for responsible recycling,” Nitin Gupta, founder and CEO of Attero says.

Gupta studied electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, and has an MBA from New York University.

Attero was one of the nine waste innovators picked by NASA in 2012 for its initiative called Launch: Beyond Waste.

Currently, Attero processes more than a million pounds of electronic assets from 500 cities across 25 states. The latest round of funding will give it the resources to set up more waste treatment plants, grow its client base, and expand operations to other countries as well.

See: Chinese used electronics startup gets $8M funding

Globally, about 50 million metric tons of ewaste is disposed of every year. In North America, about 70 percent of overall toxic waste generated is ewaste. Besides hazardous materials, ewaste also contains many valuable and precious materials – but currently, only 12.5 percent of this is being recycled. About 70 percent of ewaste handled in India is from other countries, but the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that between 2007 and 2020, domestic television ewaste will double, computer ewaste will increase five times, and cell phones 18 times.

The latest round of funding for Attero is led by Forum Synergies (India). It has raised two earlier rounds of institutional funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), Granite Hill India Opportunity Ventures, and Kalaari Capital, besides debt funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

(Top image: Flickr user Peter Werkman)