Despite the well-known environmental benefits of recycling, it’s estimated that less than 10% of the world’s plastic gets recycled. Ganiga Innovation looks to bring that percentage up using AI-enabled robotic waste bins.
Italian startup Ganiga built three products to help better manage waste and recycling. The first is a fleet of robotic waste bins, called Hoooly, that use generative AI to determine what is trash and what is recycling and sort the waste accordingly. The second is a smart lid that can be fitted to existing waste bins with the same functionality as its larger bin counterpart.
The company also has a software product that allows companies to track the waste they produce; it offers suggestions for how a company can reduce waste production based on its waste data.
Ganiga will be showing off its tech as part of this year’s Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, which runs from October 27 through 30 in San Francisco.
Nicolas Zeoli, the founder and CEO of Ganiga, told TechCrunch that he’s had dreams of building the next great company, like Facebook or Apple, since he was younger.
He decided to focus on waste because he said issues surrounding waste management are very tangible in his native Italy — and it was clear there wasn’t much being done about it.
“We all need to reclaim this problem,” Zeoli said. “I read 100 articles on this problem. For example, in one year, only in one year, in the whole world over 100 million tons of plastic is created and only 9% is recycled. This is a very real problem.”
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Zeoli launched Ganiga in 2021 and built its first prototype in 2022. Zeoli said they decided to focus on building a bin to solve this problem because it not only gives people a physical place to put waste that can ensure it gets properly recycled and sorted, but also because the bins spit out data that can be used for the future.
Waste management is also expensive for companies, Zeoli said. Many organizations, especially in Europe, have ESG mandates to adhere to. Zeoli hopes Hoooly can help companies better track their waste production to help them reduce waste and waste-related costs down the line.
Ganiga started selling its bins in 2024 and has since sold more than 120 robots to customers like Google and multiple airports including the ones in Bologna, Venice, and Madrid, among others.
Zeoli said the company made $500,000 in revenue in 2024 and is already up to $750,000 in just the first nine months of 2025.
The company has also raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding from investors including clean tech VC firm NextSTEP and Next Energy Capital, among others. Ganiga is looking to raise a $3 million seed round.
The company is gearing up to launch its latest product in November, the Hooolyfood, which is a software product that uses camera images to determine the exact amount of food waste. The company plans to delve into further software-focused products in the future, too, Zeoli said, based on the data their current bins and software is collecting.
Ganiga has focused on the European market thus far, but Zeoli said he’s hoping to expand into the U.S.; the company is even thinking of moving its headquarters stateside in 2026.
“Ganiga is the first startup in all the world to fill one airport with the smart bins,” Zeoli said. “This is important because we don’t target the prototype, we are a product, and we are open to the market.”
If you want to learn from Ganiga firsthand, and see dozens of additional pitches, valuable workshops and make the connections that drive business results, head here to learn more about this year’s Disrupt, held October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.
