It is estimated that despite the well-known environmental advantages of recycling lower than 10% of the world’s plastic is recycled. Ganiga Innovation wants to extend this percentage by using robotic garbage containers equipped with artificial intelligence.
Italian startup Ganiga has created three products that help higher manage waste and recycling. The first is a fleet of robotic garbage bins called Hoooly, which use generative artificial intelligence to find out what is trash and what is recyclable and sort it accordingly. The second is a smart lid that may be attached to existing garbage bins, providing the same functionality as its larger counterpart.
The company also has software that enables firms to trace the waste they produce; provides suggestions on how a company can reduce waste production based on waste data.
Ganiga will showcase its technology as a part of this yr’s Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, which will happen October 27-30 in San Francisco.
Nicolas Zeoli, founder and CEO of Ganiga, told TechCrunch that from a young age he dreamed of making the next big company like Facebook or Apple.
He decided to focus on waste because he found that in his native Italy, waste management issues were very tangible and it was clear that not much was being done on the issue.
“We all have to deal with this problem,” Zeoli said. “I have read 100 articles on this topic. For example, in one year alone, over 100 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide, of which 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 it decided to focus on building a garbage bin to unravel this problem because it not only gives people a physical place to dump their waste, ensuring it is properly recycled and sorted, but also because the bins spit out data that may be used in the future.
Zeoli said waste management is also costly for businesses. Many organizations, especially in Europe, have ESG mandates that have to be adhered to. Zeoli hopes that Hoooly will help firms higher track waste production, which will help them reduce waste and waste-related costs in the future.
Ganiga began selling its garbage bins in 2024 and has since sold over 120 robots to customers resembling Google and multiple airports, including Bologna, Venice and Madrid, among others.
Zeoli said the company achieved revenues of $500,000 in 2024, and already in the first nine months of 2025 they reached $750,000.
The company also raised $1.5 million in pre-seed financing from investors including cleantech VC firm NextSTEP and Next Energy Capital. Ganiga is seeking to raise a $3 million seed round.
The company is preparing to launch its newest product, Hooolyfood, in November, a software that uses camera images to find out the exact amount of food wasted. The company plans to delve into further software-focused products in the future, Zeoli said, based on the data collected by their current containers and software.
Ganiga has so far focused on the European market, but Zeoli said he hopes to expand into the U.S. market; the company is even considering about moving its headquarters to the United States in 2026.
“Ganiga is the first start-up in the world to fill one airport with smart containers,” Zeoli said. “This is important because we do not focus on the prototype, we are the product and we are open to the market.”