Phone recycler secures multi-million funding

Archiv – US-based mobile phone recycler ReCellular has raised US$ 15 million (Euro 11 million) from Investor Growth Capital (IGC) to fund its expansion plans. ’This investment marks a milestone in ReCellular’s history,’ says CEO Chuck Newman. ’It marks our transition from a successful start-up in the emerging field of cell phone recycling into the undisputed global leader in electronics sustainability.’United States | US-based mobile phone recycler ReCellular has raised US$ 15 million (Euro 11 million) from Investor Growth Capital (IGC) to fund its expansion plans. ’This investment marks a milestone in ReCellular’s history,’ says CEO Chuck Newman. ’It marks our transition from a successful start-up in the emerging field of cell phone recycling into the undisputed global leader in electronics sustainability.’
ReCellular has its headquarters in Dexter, Michigan, and also boasts operations in Hong Kong and Brazil. The company, whose revenues have increased an average of 25% over the past eight years, expects to process more than 6 million phones in 2008.
IGC is the wholly-owned venture capital arm of Investor AB, the holding firm for the Wallenberg family of Sweden; its investments include almost 20% of the voting rights in Ericsson. ’We see tremendous growth potential in ReCellular,’ says IGC’s Vice President Albert Kim. ’They have revolutionised 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.’ Mr Kim and IGC’s Managing Director Noah Walley will join ReCellular’s board of directors.
The so-called ’clean-tech’ sector is one of the fastest growing in the investment market, according to the US National Venture Capital Association. Investments in this area have increased more than ten-fold from US$ 235 million in 2003 to an estimated US$ 2.6 billion for this year.