A Sterling startup that builds robots to disassemble and salvage components and minerals found inside electronics, including data center servers, has raised $5.5 million to scale its business and keep up with growing demand.
Closed Loop Partners' Ventures Group, an early-stage startup investor from New York, led Molg Inc.'s seed round. Amazon.com Inc.'s $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund also backed the company, as did Zurich venture capital firm ABB Robotics & Automation Ventures, Los Angeles investment firm Overture, Honolulu nonprofit investor Elemental Impact and Boulder, Colorado-based startup accelerator and investors Techstars.
Founded in 2021 by CEO Rob Lawson-Shanks and Chief Technology Officer Mark Lyons, Molg is having robots disassemble and identify valuable components from old electronics so that the minerals and precious metals can be reused. The company has also partnered with the likes of Dell Technologies Inc. and HP Inc. to help redesign electronics to incorporate concepts that would support the automated recovery of those valuable components from the get-go.
In an interview, Lawson-Shanks told me data centers will play a continued role in Molg's growth, and the company pursued this extra capital to better meet that interest. As servers age, Molg's robots can help bring new life to the various components from within the machines to help cut down on the costs of acquiring additional parts.
Having the company and its 20-person workforce based near Data Center Alley was intentional, he said, while noting Molg recently moved into a new, 11,000-square-foot office from smaller space in nearby in Chantilly. In this new space, Molg is building and testing its robots, for shipment to its customers.
"Data Center Alley is where our customers are, it's where servers are, it means we're constantly in the mix of the latest and greatest that's happening in data center innovation," Lawson-Shanks said. "We really feel privileged to get to build this cutting-edge climate technology in this region."
For now, Molg's robots can disassemble servers, laptops, industrial electronics and batteries, doing so in a configuration that the company refers to as an automated "microfactory." In the future, Lawson-Shanks expects the robots to take on a wider breadth of products.
He said the company is profitable but declined to share revenue figures.
Molg has also signed on Sims Lifecycle Services, a U.K.-based electrical and electronics recovery and recycling company, as a customer, Lawson-Shanks said. Sims is using Molg's "microfactories" at its recycling centers to salvage parts faster and safer than humans could manage.
