Greyparrot acquires Bollegraaf's AI vision business and development team

Bollegraaf has partnered with Greyparrot. As part of the agreement, Bollegraaf will transfer its AI vision business to Greyparrot and make a cash investment, for a total value of $12.8M, in Greyparrot, obtaining a non-controlling stake in the company. It will also serve as a worldwide distributor and strategic partner for Greyparrot's Analyzer, which Greyparrot says currently provides 100 percent visibility into waste streams at recycling plants across 14 countries using AI camera systems.

The deal includes Greyparrot acquiring Bollegraaf's vision-based computing intellectual property (IP) and AI development team. Greyparrot will also open its first office in mainland Europe in the Netherlands.

With this partnership, both companies aim to retrofit thousands of existing materials recovery facilities (MRFs) and plastics recovery facilities (PRFs) with advanced AI capabilities to boost recycling rates and quantify material emissions. The collaboration will bring smart recycling plants that are fully automated and agile. Both companies say that this marks a momentous acceleration in the global shift from a linear to a circular economy.

By 2050, the world is expected to generate 3.4 billion tonnes of waste annually. With only around 5,500 facilities handling municipal solid waste currently operating worldwide, there is a critical need to build more plants and retrofit older ones with new technologies – such as AI – to speed up processing times and improve recycling rates to meet the growing tsunami of waste.

Only one percent of waste is monitored in facilities, and even in advanced economies, 40 percent of waste sorting is done by hand. AI, and the data it unlocks in real-time, will help digitize and automate systems to capture a massive amount of lost financial value. For plastic waste in the U.S. alone, lack of visibility and automation contributes to $80B to $120B being lost a year to landfills and incineration. Greyparrot's Analyzer gives 100 percent visibility into waste composition to unlock a new level of insight about waste that Greyparrot calls waste intelligence. With automated, real-time waste monitoring and digitized systems powered by AI, the industry can tackle the issue of 'invisible waste' and transform a labour-intensive process.