Sortrace, a Stockholm company that analyses household waste with cameras and computer vision, raised about $800,000, according to reports published on 2 November 2026. Almi Invest led the round.
Antler and Gorilla Capital took part, along with several business angels. Nordic9 and Vestbee also named Linnéa Capital among the investors. No valuation was reported.
The sources disagree on how to label the round. Tech.eu and BeBeez International did not name a stage, Nordic9 described it as a seed round of SEK 8m, and Vestbee called it an oversubscribed pre-seed round. The dollar figure is consistent across all of them. Nordic9 dated its listing 26 October 2026, a week before the other reports.
“Interest from municipalities is growing fast, and the investment allows us to meet demand.”Rahel Surshi, CEO and co-founder, Sortrace
What Sortrace does
Sortrace mounts cameras on waste collection vehicles. As bins are emptied, computer vision and data analytics examine the household waste, and the results are linked to individual bins and collection routes. Dealroom reported that the system flags mis-sorted materials by route and district and turns images into structured data that municipalities can use to target recycling campaigns.
The company says the analysis is privacy-protected and that images are stored within the EU. It says its aims are lower waste management costs, less waste sent to incineration and higher recycling rates.
Tech.eu and BeBeez said it already works with several municipalities and organisations in the recycling sector, though neither named them. Dealroom said it has paying municipal customers.
Founders and earlier backing
Rahel Surshi is chief executive and co-founder, and Tomas Kjellstrand is a co-founder, according to Tech.eu, Dealroom and Vestbee. Vestbee said the company was founded in 2025. The other reports did not give a founding year or a headcount.
Dealroom reported that the round follows earlier backing from Antler and a Vinnova grant. Vestbee did not mention earlier funding or grants, and no amounts for either were given in the sources, so no history is listed here.
What the money is for
Sortrace said it will use the funding to meet growing demand from municipalities and to extend its technology beyond collection vehicles to other stages of waste management. BeBeez, which reposted a report from Arctic Startup, put it as moving further along the waste chain. Vestbee listed expanding the team, adding more installations and improving the technology.
Surshi said: "Interest from municipalities is growing fast, and the investment allows us to meet demand." Dealroom gave a related remark from her, that without data no one knows whether municipalities' collection and information efforts work.
Ali Altaie, investment manager at Almi Invest, said: "To take steps towards a more circular economy, more decisions need to be based on data rather than assumptions."
Regulatory backdrop
Dealroom noted that Swedish municipalities carry growing responsibility for correct household sorting but often lack data on what ends up in the bins. It also pointed to the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, which began to apply in August 2026, with tighter recyclability rules phasing in toward 2030 to 2035.
Dealroom described the round as modest and said the key test is whether Sortrace can show measurable improvements in sorting and scale across public-sector customers.
Company website: sortrace.com