Food-recycling startup Mill Industries raising $100M Series C

Food-recycling startup Mill Industries has raised about $70 million toward a $100 million target for a Series C round, two sources familiar with the situation tell Axios.

Why it matters: Solutions like Mill's help mitigate food loss and waste, which contribute up to 8% of greenhouse gas emissions, per the EPA.

Details: The round will be led by Prelude, with participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the sources say.

• Lowercarbon Capital, GV (Google Ventures) and Energy Impact Partners are participating, and the round is set to close this month, according to one source.
• All the firms are existing investors.

How it works: Via a $33-per-month annual subscription, Mill provides customers with a kitchen bin the size of a trash can into which food scraps are deposited.

• The scraps are then ground up and dehydrated.
• Once the container is full, the food grounds are deposited into a prepaid box, which is picked up by the U.S. Postal Service.
• The waste ends up at a processing facility and is turned into chicken feed.

Catch up quick: Mill was founded in 2020 by Matthew Rogers — responsible for software development for Apple's iPod — and Google veteran Harry Tannenbaum.

• Rogers was also one of the engineers on the original iPhone and co-founded Nest.
• The company began offering its service this year. As of April, Mill had raised $26 million, per PitchBook.

What they're saying: "Thousands of bins deployed. The NPS scores are just phenomenal. People just love the thing," one source says.

Mill declined to comment. Prelude, Lowercarbon Capital, GV, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Energy Impact Partners did not respond to requests for comment.