Waste management-focused Recykal raises $22 mn from Morgan Stanley, others

Waste management-focused startup Recykal on Tuesday announced a USD 22 million (around Rs 162.58 crore) fund raise led by Morgan Stanley India.

Existing investors Circulate Capital, Vellayan Subbiah, and Arun Venkatachalam from the Murugappa family also participated in the fund raising, which will be deployed for expansion of services pan-India, hiring talent and building hyper-local waste processing infrastructure.

The Hyderabad-based company serves the over USD 100 billion per year, highly fragmented and otherwise informal waste management industry with solutions including a B2B platform which connects sellers and buyers, and also helps plastic generating companies like Cola giants meet the extended producer responsibility compliance norms.

"We researched for three years before launching the company. We have a network across the country now and have been growing at a pace of over three times now," its founder and chief executive Abhay Deshpande told PTI.

The serial entrepreneur said Recykal had a revenue of Rs 1.8 crore in FY19, which is likely to touch Rs 220 crore in FY22. He also made it clear that though the company has a social impact, the team wants to pitch itself as a commercial venture and not as a social impact venture.

"Waste management in India and many other parts of the world is already a big problem and it is getting worse. We believe our investment will allow Recykal to play a leadership role in implementing scalable and sustainable solutions to one of society's biggest challenges," said Raja Parthasarathy, managing director and co-head of Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure.

Morgan Stanley will get board representation on the company, Deshpande said, without disclosing the exact stake to be held or Recykal's valuations.