E-waste processor targets corporate tech lifecycle challenges
OK, my bad. I promised in a post about electronic waste a couple of weeks ago to write about a newish company that is getting more active with Fortune 500 type companies, and then promptly spaced out during a whirlwind of other things last week. So, here's that promised post, which is about a player called CloudBlue Technologies, which just received some Series B funding from Riverwood Capital.
Last week, CloudBlue said it signed 25 new enterprise accounts in the past 12 months, hailing from the financial services and insurance, healthcare, media and manufacturing sectors. The company has some pretty serious credentials: It is a member of the Basel Action Network's e-Stewards program. The program includes recycling concerns that have pledged not to dump toxic e-waste in landfills or incinerators, export the stuff to developing countries or partners who hire prison labor. Depending on the company your business uses for technology recycling, you may be exposed to one or all of these issues.
CloudBlue differentiates itself from the competition by touting its ability to provide a local touch: Based in Alpharetta, Georgia, it has 16 locations around the country. Ken Beyer, CEO of CloudBlue, says this allows his company to deploy a mobile network of processing trucks that can assuage the data security concerns of banks and other financial institutions that have to follow strict data destruction requirements. These trucks can handle the requisite hard drive shredding on site; then the components can leave the facility for processing.
"Most companies have been doing something with their equipment already, but we really help them handle it more methodically through processes that can be repeated over time," Beyer says.
He estimates that approximately 30 percent of larger companies now have some process in place to manage their e-waste challenges, but that adoption of corporate e-waste policies will rise as the efforts of the Basel Action Network to disclose the issue continue and more companies seek to eke as much value as possible out of aging equipment.