PH circular economy startup Humble Sustainability secures fresh funding

Philippine-based circular economy startup Humble Sustainability has raised $750,000 in Seed funding to enable it to bring companies’ excess inventory back to circulation through its technology services.

Leading Humble’s seed round was Seedstars International Ventures, a seed-stage venture fund dedicated to emerging and frontier markets.

The other participants were iSeed Ventures, an early-stage VC in San Francisco, and angel investors like Alan Wong, co-founder of Ula, and Sagar Achanta, who held product leadership roles at Amazon, Booking.com and Disney+ and Paco Sandejas and Richard Eldridge, some of the Philippines’ top strategic investors and serial entrepreneurs, among others.

“We are delighted to support Humble in the journey to reduce waste and promote circular living. Humble is a great fit to Seedstars’ thesis of supporting early-stage companies that can create meaningful impact with an attractive business model,” Seedstars Partner Patricia Sosrodjojo said.

Founded by CEO Josef Werker and COO Niña Opida, Humble advocates for “circular living” as it helps some of the largest e-commerce, logistics and retail companies in the Philippines reduce their wastes by preventing items from being disposed of and decreasing demand for the production of new ones.

Grateful for the trust that they have been getting, Werker said their investors do not just pour in capital, but they are also actively involved in their operations.

And as they continue to grow, Humble hopes to become a leader in the circular economy and sustainability in the Philippines, with initiatives in mind like carbon footprint tracking, innovation grants and raw materials extraction.

Unused and wasted inventory is a major concern as e-commerce companies lose up to $1 trillion from their returns, which are often stocked in warehouses for disposal or incineration. In 2021, at least 2 billion tons of wastes were disposed in landfills.

Humble is a circular economy startup, helping businesses with the products they’re struggling to sell, doing so sustainably, with excellent service and high value recovery. Since 2021, Humble has been successfully handling the inventory of some of the top companies in the country, with the aim to bring every item back into circularity.