Do chopsticks have an afterlife? Meet ChopValue! This Canadian startup uses recycled chopsticks as their material to design and manufacture products. 

• They’ve just raised $7.7M in funding!
• This brings their total funding amount to $9.5M.
  

Investor check. The lead investors of the latest round are undisclosed. Others on their cap table include Fulmer Capital, Active Impact Investments, and Mindset Ventures. 

🥢 Why chopsticks? 

Chopsticks are slender and defect-free. They take used chopsticks from businesses and produce new products.

• Bamboo chopsticks are preferred because it grows much faster than wood, meaning bamboo forests can be replenished much faster! 
  

Are there enough chopsticks? Yes! ChopValue collects over 350k chopsticks every week from Vancouver alone. That’s a lot of chopsticks.

• Founded in 2016, they’ve saved over 100M chopsticks and turned them into products! 
• They opened their first Singapore-based micro-factory in 2021. 10M chopsticks have been recycled in Singapore. 

🏭 The micro-factory concept

ChopValue uses a decentralized approach to source and recycles locally — small businesses can become ChopValue franchises. 

Future plans? They’re looking for more franchise partners! Oh, and they’d like to expand to Australia, the EU, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and SEA! 

♻️ Going circular

The World Economic Forum forecasts that the circular economy could yield $4.5 trillion in economic benefits by 2030.

• ChopValue is playing a part in creating more innovative processes for a more sustainable future.