Oscorp Energy, a robotics startup building AI-based machines for the waste and recycling industry, has raised A$1.3 million in pre-Seed funding.
The round was led by European VC Atlas, via its AI VB fund, supported by Antler and Antipodean Capital.
CEO Ani Goswami cofounded Oscorp during the Antler residency program in Australia. Antler backed the Sydney startup at the end of the residency and followed on during its pre-Seed raise
Oscorp is building AI-powered vision and robotic systems to identify, classify and remove materials from fast-moving waste streams in real time.
The company’s first focus is one of the most urgent safety issues facing the sector: detecting and removing lithium-ion batteries before they trigger fires in trucks, material recovery facilities and recycling sites.
A big little batteries problem
The scale of that problem is significant. An Australian Council of Recycling study estimates there are between 10,000 and 12,000 battery-related fires annually in waste and recycling streams in Australia.
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The Oscorp system combines AI vision, edge computing and robotics to detect battery-containing objects and remove them before they become a safety issue. The startup is collaborating with ASX-listed battery recycler Livium (ASX: LIT) as a design partner for its battery detection and robotic removal system, with plans to deploy the technology at one of Livium’s sites as part of the collaboration.
The funding will support commercial pilots with recycling and waste operators.
Goswami said waste sorting remains physically demanding and hazardous in recycling.
“People are still doing too much of the most hazardous and repetitive sorting by hand,” he said.
“Our goal is to empower those workers with intelligent machines that make their jobs safer, reduce risk for operators and give facilities better visibility over what is moving through their lines.”
His ambition is to create broader Vision OS platform for waste facilities, giving operators real-time intelligence across material flow, contamination, recovery losses and operational performance across multiple lines and sites.
“We’re starting with batteries because the pain is urgent, visible and expensive for operators. But batteries are only the beginning,” Goswami said.
“The same intelligence layer can help waste facilities understand plastics, contamination and material recovery across the full stream.”
Antler’s Michael Kron said Goswami and the Oscorp team are building world-class technology at the intersection of AI, robotics and the circular economy.
“They are tackling a real industrial problem with the potential to make waste facilities safer today and more autonomous over time,” he said.
