Funding will be used to grow team, fuel U.S. expansion A Vancouver-based company aiming to reduce disposable container waste has raised $3.6 million in a seed funding round. “Our vision is a world without waste,” Jason Hawkins, CEO of Circular Solutions Inc. (doing business as Reusables Co.), told BIV ahead of Tuesday’s funding announcement. Founded in 2021, he said Reusables seeks to help institutional food service operators like universities and hospitals transition away from disposable packaging by replacing it with reusable packaging to help drive sustainability. Food is first packed using a Reusables container, which comes in different shapes and sizes, and subsequently handed to the customer. Upon checkout, the customer taps to pay for their food using a point of sale system that is connected to a Reusables checkout device linking their card to the container. The container is then scanned and assigned to that specific customer. Once the customer is done using the container, they can return it by scanning and dropping-off the container at a smart bin or a designated return area. These are then cleaned and reused. Hawkins said the system doesn’t require the client to sign up for any apps and it’s also free without a deposit up front. However, if the customer doesn’t return the container within five days, a refundable deposit between $5 and $10—depending on the size of the container—is charged, he said. “Think about it like a library system … we call it a delayed deposit,” said Hawkins. “If you just forgot to return it within five days, you still have a 30-day grace period to return your container and you get an automatic refund right away, so there's no delay.” He said the system is designed with accountability in mind, adding the company is seeing a return rate of over 98 per cent on average among their clients. The company plans to launch operations at the University of California’s Los Angeles and Riverside campuses. Hawkins said there will be nine smart bins at both campuses to start, with the goal of expanding into a campus-wide system. He said 11 universities are already working with Reusables. “Our expectation is for that number to grow quite substantially this year,” Hawkins said. Among those is the University of Guelph, with its community returning reusable containers more than 500,000 times annually and approaching one of the largest reuse systems in North America, he said. The $3.6 million in seed funding will go towards expanding the company’s go-to-market and product teams, as well as investing in their U.S. expansion, according to Hawkins. Reusables started with a focus on restaurants, cafes and grocery stores, reaching 150 commercial food retailers between Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle at one point, said Hawkins. In 2023, the company transitioned to institutional food service operators. He said this was mainly due to impact, as working with large-scale food service operations allows for a faster and bigger impact. Moving forward, he said there are tremendous opportunities in terms of leveraging AI, and offering other products and technologies. “Not only for these institutional food service operators, but also other types of companies that are looking to save money [and] reduce waste,” he said. The funding round was led by StandUp Ventures and Amplify Capital, with participation from Sandpiper Ventures and Emend Vision Fund. [email protected]