Denver's robot recycling company raises $91 million

Denver-based Amp Robotics has raised $91 million, the company announced Tuesday.

Details: Amp says its robots make recycling more viable and lucrative, Axios Pro's Alan Neuhauser writes.

• Recycling is often labor-intensive and expensive, meaning materials that should be recycled often wind up in landfills.
• Amp touts that its AI-powered robots quickly and accurately sort waste, saving money on human labor costs.
• The company's tech uses computer vision and learning to find and recover plastic, cardboard, paper, cans and other containers that can be reclaimed for raw processing, per a statement.

Driving the news: The funding came primarily from Congruent Ventures and Wellington Management.

• The money aims to help Amp scale and boost its expansion by helping support a fleet of 275 robots worldwide.
• The company has three production facilities in Denver, Atlanta, Georgia and Cleveland, Ohio metro areas.

By the numbers: Only 5% of the estimated 44 million metric tons of plastic waste managed in the U.S. in 2019 was recycled, according to a report released earlier this year by researchers at the Golden-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

What they're saying: "Our focus from the outset has been our application of AI-powered automation to economically and sustainably improve our global recycling system,” Matanya Horowitz, founder and CEO of AMP Robotics, said in a release.