Rheaply, a climate tech leader that combines a resource sharing network with an asset management platform, announced that it has raised $2.5 million in a seed round led by Hyde Park Angels, with participation from Concentric Equity Partners, M25, Techstars Ventures and individual angel investor Walter A. Winshall. These funds will enable Rheaply to further invest in the platform and build out its engineering, product development and marketing teams.

Today, as many organizations execute their corporate sustainability plans, the focus is primarily on recycling. However, though recycling is important, this singular focus ignores another core pillar of sustainability: reuse. Most organizations in healthcare, enterprise technology, retail, government, higher education and other verticals have a supply of assets that are not being utilized efficiently, if at all. Without an easy way to catalog those resources, companies purchase items when they have reasonable, if not better, alternatives available for reuse. Those reusable assets end up going unused and eventually to landfills, leading to the generation of millions of tons of waste. These practices ultimately are a drain on the organization’s funds and time, as well as a major detriment to the environment. 

Rheaply’s platform eliminates this potential waste by instituting the principles of a circular economy, a model that emphasizes “designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use and regenerating natural systems.” With Rheaply’s Asset Exchange Manager 1, members of organizations gain transparency about available assets, which ends the hassle of double-buying, waiting for new items to arrive and space constraints, while also diverting waste from landfills. Thus far, conservatively Rheaply has helped organizations divert more than 14.5 metric tons of waste and produce $1.3 million in cost savings with more than 10,000 transactions, the majority of which occurred in 2019.

“Many companies don’t have the tools to fully realize that their inefficient practices are taking a toll on both their bottom line and the environment,” said Garry Cooper, co-founder and CEO of Rheaply, in a statement. “Our platform not only saves these organizations significant money and time by helping them better use the assets they already have but changes the way people think about the utility of the things they use every day.”

“From the moment we heard about Rheaply, we saw how impactful the platform will become,” added Pete Wilkins, managing director of Hyde Park Angels, in a statement. “Its cost savings and waste diversion progress demonstrate the critical financial and environmental impact of instituting more effective reuse practices.”

In the coming months, Rheaply said it will announce additional partnerships with major governmental bodies, retail brands and institutions of higher education.