Category: Sustainability
Apkudo helps companies ensure that phones and other technologies can be reused instead of wasting away in a landfill.
In 2022 and 2023, the Canton firm raised $51.9 million in two venture capital rounds. President Chad Gottesman believes the next step for the company is to go public through an initial public offering. Before the company enters the public markets, Apkudo will expand internationally through offices in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to work with Apkudo’s foreign customers.
The company's international push has already started to bear fruit. Apkudo has already begun working with one Dutch online retailer of second-hand electronics, Remarketed.
Apkudo, a 100-person company founded in 2011, evaluates the conditions of devices like cell phones and laptops to see if they can be repaired, sold or recycled. A business sends Apkudo its old technology and the Canton firm uses a robotic line to evaluate up to 300 devices an hour. Apkudo evaluated 14 million devices in 2022, up from 8 million in 2021. The company has several high-profile clients like FedEx, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Amazon.
"None of it ends up in the landfill," Gottesman told the Baltimore Business Journal in February. "We're trying to eliminate any new e-waste."
Apkudo is broadening its focus from mobile phones. The company now works more with laptops and recently built a trade-in program with Dell Computers.
Part of Apkudo's growth is being fueled by a desire for companies to generate less electronic waste. Although electronics are a ubiquitous part of everyday life, only 20% of people recycle their electronics. Apkudo hopes to develop a more circular economy where materials for older devices are used to build new ones. Some of its largest customers are on board with the concept: Dell plans for half of its computers to be made of recycled materials by 2030.
