Helsinki’s Ambio raises €5.1 million to scale its AI-powered recycled plastics procurement platform
Ambio, a Helsinki-based startup founded in 2023 by Tommi Bergström and Elmo Pakkanen, has raised a €5.1 million Seed round. b2venture led the round, with participation from Montis and existing investor Lifeline Ventures. Ambio is building an AI-native, end-to-end procurement solution for recycled plastics that covers the full purchasing cycle, from material discovery to long-term deliveries.
The company says European manufacturers increasingly ask for recycled plastics because of sustainability, price advantages and tightening regulatory requirements. It adds that every tonne recycled and used in Europe stays in the European supply chain, which strengthens resilience and reduces dependence on imported fossil fuels needed for virgin plastics. Procurement, however, remains fragmented, manual and hard to scale. Recycled polymers vary significantly in quality by source, batch and processing history, data is scattered or missing, and quality is often confirmed only at the production line.
Ambio's answer is verified materials, structured quality data and one accountable partner from first sample to long-term deliveries. Materials are qualified through samples, documentation and defined quality protocols. Each transaction adds structured data on materials, suppliers, pricing and outcomes, and Ambio's matching engine uses this growing dataset to improve matching, quoting and execution over time. CEO Bergström says the goal is to predict whether a material will work before sampling even happens, and he believes trust, more than regulation alone, holds back wider adoption.
b2venture partner Mathias Ockenfels pointed to a compounding moat: a proprietary dataset on recyclate quality, a principal model that builds trust with buyers and sellers, and an agentic engine that turns every transaction into better matchmaking. He expects Ambio to become the central marketplace for recycled plastics in Europe and beyond.
Ambio will use the funding to scale internationally and across polymer types. It aims to make recycled plastics procurement as predictable as buying virgin polymers and to become the pan-European trust layer of the recyclates market.