Ahmedabad-based robotic startup Ishitva has raised a Pre-Series A round of over $1 million led by Inflection Point Ventures, an angel investment platform. The funds raised will be utilised in growing sales and expanding the R&D team.

Many Waste management and plastic value chain players and veterans also participated in the funding round including Kamaljyot Investments Ltd (a subsidiary of Excel Industries Ltd), Gandhi Family from GRP Ltd, AVI Global Plast Private Limited, Anup Gulati - COO at Quality Maritime Provider LDA, Harinder Arya - President and Div CEO - Major Capex and Pressure Control at Joulon, Sanjay Kamlani - Serial Investor and Founder of Pangea3 and Mohan Ayyangar, Operations Lead – GDS EY India.

Mitesh Shah, Co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures said,

“According to MoHUA, as of January 2020, India generated 1,47,613 MT of solid waste. This is a serious situation that our country is headed to and we are seeing startups taking on this challenge to address the waste generated in the country. Ishitva’s model is particularly innovative as they are leveraging cutting edge technology to sort out the waste which is already being generated.”

Founded by Jitesh Dadlani, Ishitva uses AI, ML, and IoT Industry 4.0 to build efficient solutions that help in Sorting complex waste.

Its solutions include SUKA (AI-powered air sorting), YUTA (AI-powered robotic sorting), and Netra AI Vision system that help in identifying waste and smart bins. The AI-powered Netra identifies the waste, learns about its contents by capturing images, and then scans for recyclable material.

Jitesh Dadlani, Founder of Ishitva, has spent more than five years working closely with Waste Management companies to understand their challenges and to explore how to mitigate these using industry 4.0 tools, said,

“Indian waste management industry is a riddle and our unlimited dream is to eliminate the manual sorting of waste which often involves humans to work unhygienic conditions. Our vision is to install industry 4.0 solutions in 4,000+ towns of the country picked up by the Swachh Bharat mission and we are thrilled to have IPV as a part of this journey.”

In a statement, the startup said that effective sorting of waste is currently the weakest link in creating a circular value chain. Therefore, to avoid dumping and burning of dry waste, which leads to serious environmental hazards, it focuses on leveraging industry 4.0 tools to systematically sort out waste and assess the quality of recyclable waste.

Sandip Singh, CEO of Ishitva, who has 16 years of experience in venture building and private equity investments, added, “We are excited that many of the waste industry stalwarts are joining early in our journey. With IPV, we now have access to a large pool of professionals and experts which is immensely useful at this stage for us.”

Ishitva’s sorting solutions are already installed in commercial material recovery facilities and the company is in the advanced stage of talks with multiple MRF facilities as well as recyclers in the plastic value chain.