Hoooly – €3M Seed/Pre-A: Compliance Infrastructure for the New Packaging Economy

We don't just sell smart bins. We sell the physical and digital infrastructure that lets CPG brands and high-traffic locations prove packaging recovery, lower EPR fees and stay compliant with PPWR, CSRD and Simpler Recycling.

The problem: the smart-bin category has been stuck selling a luxury gadget. Everyone says "wow" in the demo, but few sign multi-year contracts, leaving eternal pilots and long sales cycles. Legacy players (Bigbelly, Sensoneo, Ecube) compete on fill-level, a commoditized signal a cheap ultrasonic sensor already delivers. Meanwhile, regulation is turning correct waste separation into a legal obligation with real fines, and no one yet owns the proof layer.

Why now: five regulations are converging into one obligated market. The EU's PPWR (Reg. 2025/40) is now in force, with general application from August 2026. EPR eco-modulation schemes such as CITEO in France (~€1.3B/year) and CONAI in Italy (~€0.8–1B/year) increasingly reward brands using verified recycled content and penalize mixed materials. CSRD/ESRS E5 makes circular-economy disclosure mandatory for large corporates. In the UK, Simpler Recycling has been mandatory since March 2025 for all workplaces with 10 or more employees, with penalties up to £5,000 and enforcement action. California's SB 1383, additional US state EPR laws and Australia's nationwide container deposit scheme follow the same pattern.

Our business model runs on two concentric wedges. Primary, B2B: obligated locations (airports, retail chains, REITs, UK workplaces) pay for a compliance device that documents conformant separation and creates an audit trail, reducing fine risk. Secondary, B2B2B: once we cross 2,000+ installed bins, CPG brands such as Coca-Cola, Heineken, Nestlé Waters, Ferrarelle and Red Bull can pay for co-branded collection points that prove packaging recovery, lower their EPR fees and generate verified sustainability claims, while the host location uses the device for free.

Traction: 149 devices deployed, 83 units sold in 2025, 33 open opportunities and a €2.0 million rollout pipeline. Monthly AI classifications have grown roughly 15x in the past 12 months, compounding our proprietary compliance data asset over time.

Go-to-market follows the regulation: Italy first as a beachhead (PPWR and CONAI eco-modulation, targeting 2–3 CPG letters of intent and 1–2 large REIT/airport deals), then France and Germany for EU expansion (CITEO discounts/malus, LUCID register), then the UK piggybacking on mandatory Simpler Recycling, and finally selective entry into Australia and the US (California) where similar EPR and deposit-return frameworks apply.

We are de-risking the thesis with four 90-day experiments: a quote-and-close test on three EU airports, conditional sales with letters of intent from Italian CPG brands, a real eco-modulation savings calculation with CONAI/CITEO, and 30 interviews with CPG sustainability and procurement teams to confirm budget ownership.

The ask: we are raising a €3 million Seed/Pre-A round, with €1.5 million (50%) already secured. The remaining €1.5 million will fund the 90-day validation plan and our industrialization scale-up from 100 to 1,000 devices: approximately 40% to go-to-market and validation (BDR hires, EU airport and CPG pilots), 35% to industrialization and supply chain, and 25% to the computer vision/data platform and compliance reporting engine.