Safi Secures $19.5 Million in Series A Funding Round

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Safi, the innovative leader in the global B2B marketplace for recyclables trading, publicly announced the successful closure of a $19.5 million Series A funding round on Friday 24th November, 2023. Nosara Capital led the investment, with significant participation from existing investors LowerCarbon and Transition. Additional new investors in this round include the founders of 2 other fast-growing B2B Marketplaces, Erez Mathan of Rooser and David Sutton of Nivoda, further highlighting the industry's confidence in Safi's transformative approach.

Safi operates a global B2B marketplace for trading recyclables (plastic, paper and metal) internationally underpinned by a unique AI enhanced material quality control regime and embedded financing programme.

Recyclables trading represents a rapidly growing $290bn market today. Safi is actively building solutions to address the challenges inherent in the recyclables trading market, which is currently entirely offline, dominated by analogue brokers, and hindered by a lack of quality control, financing and digital transaction management tools.

The existing recycling supply chain, where over 90% of consumed plastic is never recycled, is a glaring issue that Safi aims to rectify. Leveraging its one-of-a-kind platform, Safi is reshaping the industry landscape.

In just one year since its launch in November 2022, Safi has achieved remarkable growth, witnessing annualised Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) surge from $0 to over $40 million. The platform serves sellers and buyers across more than 15 countries around the globe. With over 79,000 tonnes of recyclables being traded through Safi, they have helped to prevent over 160,000 tonnes of CO2e emissions.

“Safi increases the value of high-quality recyclable materials by improving transparency, discoverability, and accessibility within the waste market. In doing so, Safi is creating incentives for investment in improved sorting/processing technologies, and increasing the share of waste that’s recycled. Rishi and the team are also proving that high impact climate tech businesses in traditional industries can be capital light and scale very quickly. It’s been a joy to work with them over the past couple years, and we’re excited about the journey ahead.” - Transition VC

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Rishi Stocker, the CEO of Safi and an early employee at Revolut between 2016-2020, expressed excitement about the milestone and the future prospects of the company. “We're doubling down on our mission to increase recycling rates across the world and reduce our reliance on carbon intensive virgin materials.” Stocker remarked.

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