Circular Economy

Humble's here to turn trash into treasure

November 10, 2022
Humble Sustainability

Stay humble. And by that, we mean Humble Sustainability! This Philippine circular economy startup just raised a $750,000 seed led by Seedstars International Ventures.

  • They've processed more than 150,000 items and worked with 20 companies.

Investor check. iSeed Ventures (Wing Vasiksiri), Buko Ventures and several angels also joined in!

🚮 Another person's trash is...

They receive excess inventory from businesses for assessment, check what condition they're in and figure out their value.

  • Why are they "trash"? These are aging items, display units, items with damaged packaging, returns and failed claims.
  • What kinda stuff? These are items like clothing, consumer electronics and household appliances.

⭐️ Another person's treasure

From there, they decide where the items should go. High-quality items go to their sustainable e-commerce platform, Thrift — for extra-low prices. The rest? They're sold in bulk to their B2B network (buyers and recyclers).

  • Clients they source the items from can monitor the status of their items and get paid for their sales.

🤔 Why it matters

Humble makes sure everything it takes doesn't end up in a landfill. Without Humble, the process isn't as effective — a lot of items end up wasted.

More than just keeping landfills from piling up, Humble extracts more value out of these items by selling them on Thrift or to their B2B network.

  • Typically, high-quality unwanted inventory ends up at a traditional liquidator (if not at a landfill).
  • This way, they prevent more waste and also reduce demand for new products.

💰 What's with the $$$?

They'll be expanding their network of partners and buyers and growing the team!

On the tech side. They'll also be bringing their tech development in-house, as well as working on long-term initiatives like a carbon footprint tracker, a dashboard for their B2B clients and raw materials extraction.

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