Ambio raises €5.1 million to make recycled plastics procurement faster and more reliable

Helsinki, Finland, 14 October 2026 – Ambio has raised EUR 5.1m seed round led by b2venture, with participation from Montis VC and existing investor Lifeline Ventures to bring trust, reliability, and speed to recycled plastics procurement. Ambio is an AI-native end-to-end procurement solution that covers the whole purchasing cycle for recycled plastics from material discovery to long-term deliveries.

Recyclates: a growing market held back by a lack of trust

European manufacturers want recycled plastics. For thousands of industrial buyers across Europe, recycled materials are not only a sustainability measure but also a cost decision: they usually come at a price advantage, meet the tightening regulatory requirements, and customers increasingly ask for them. Additionally, every tonne recycled and used in Europe stays in the European supply chain, increasing supply chain resilience and reducing dependence on imported fossils needed in virgin plastics production.

Yet, recycled plastics procurement remains fragmented, manual and difficult to scale. That is because recycled polymers vary significantly in quality, depending on source, batch and processing history. The most pressing issue: data is scattered or missing, and quality is often only confirmed at the production line. Industrial buyers want recycled materials to behave like any other input: consistent quality, reliable delivery, no surprises – but today that is still the exception. To reach broad adoption and elevate market growth, a verification infrastructure is needed that turns recycled plastics from a gamble into a reliably obtainable material at scale.

CEO Tommi Bergström believes the widespread adoption of recycled plastics is held back by trust rather than only regulatory measures:

“People in the industry like to talk about regulation and the EU. We are a startup, we cannot yet impact what happens in Brussels. What we can impact is the purchasing experience for the buyer. When you’re buying virgin plastics, you know exactly what you’re getting. When you’re buying recycled, you’ll know if it works when it’s running in your production line. Our goal is to predict if the material works or not before sampling even happens.”

Ambio: Providing trust with quality, data, and AI

Ambio is an AI-native end-to-end procurement solution that makes recycled plastics predictable: 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. Ambio’s matching engine learns from this growing dataset: each transaction adds structured data on materials, suppliers, pricing and outcomes. Ambio uses this growing dataset to improve matching, quoting and execution over time.

Ambio's role is to be a reliable supplier for industrial buyers of recycled plastics – not only by providing data for transparency, but also by acting as a principal that controls the supply chain and takes responsibility for quality assurance. This way, Ambio aims to eliminate the lack of trust and transparency that has historically dampened market growth.

“We are backing Ambio not only because of the talented team led by Tommi and Elmo but also because of the compounding competitive moat the business is built on: a proprietary dataset on recyclate quality, a principal model that builds trust with buyers and sellers, and an agentic engine that turns every transaction and quality data point into improved matchmaking. We are convinced that Ambio will become the central marketplace for recycled plastics in Europe and beyond.”

Mathias Ockenfels, Partner, b2venture

Becoming the trust layer of the recyclate market

The current EUR 5.1m seed round led by b2venture, with participation from Lifeline Ventures and Montis VC, provides Ambio with capital to scale internationally and across polymer types. The funding will support its goal to make recycled plastics procurement as predictable as buying virgin polymers, driving adoption across Europe and beyond. That is important for the continent at this very moment, as using more recycled plastic also means decreasing the EU’s dependency on imported fossils. By ensuring quality, providing data, and leveraging agentic AI, Ambio aims to become the central, pan-European trust layer of the growing recyclates market.