TrashLab, an AI-powered software platform for waste management companies, has raised $12 million in a growth funding round led by Ventana. Existing investors Bienville Capital, Harlem Capital, and CreativeCo also participated.
The company will use the funding to improve its products, expand AI-powered workflows, and grow its sales and marketing teams.
Founded in 2022 by Neil Chaudhary and John Tan, TrashLab provides a single platform for customer management, waste collection scheduling, route planning, billing, payments, and reporting.
Its AI-powered agent, Haul-E, handles incoming customer calls and records orders, including requests received after business hours. Nearly 80% of TrashLab’s customers now use the tool.
“Haulers have been forced to choose between antiquated tools and platforms that can’t handle more than one line of business,” said Neil Chaudhary, co-founder and CEO of TrashLab. “We built TrashLab to eliminate those silos and give haulers complete visibility into their operations, margins, and profitability. Our customers see a return from fuel savings, leaner back offices, and faster collections within weeks of going live. Haul-E, our AI agent, is already answering calls and taking orders for most of them — and it’s the first of many agents we’re building into the platform.”
“TrashLab has completely transformed our business. Our phone system, field operations, and back-office billing all run in one place, so every part of the company is finally working in lockstep,” said Brad Uribe, Owner at Uribe Refuse. “When the camera flags a can not out, a blocked dumpster, or an overflowed container, it moves from the field to a customer text to the invoice automatically. The whole process is streamlined, and we’re catching, billing, and resolving issues that used to fall through the cracks.”
“We run roll-off, front-load, and portable toilets, and it was nearly impossible to find one platform that could handle the complexity of our rolloff and recurring-service businesses at the same time. TrashLab was the only one purpose-built for both,” said Mike Smith, President of First State Waste. “Since going live TrashLab has allowed us to grow our fleet 3x all while keeping the same lean backoffice team. As we expand into scale facilities and recycling, we already know TrashLab has the solution in place for us to grow into.”
“Waste is an industry that never gets a day off. It’s essential, demanding, and central to how every community functions,” said Vinay Kumar, Co-Founder and Partner at Ventana, who will join TrashLab’s board of directors. “TrashLab gives haulers one AI-native system for every line of their business. It’s the fastest-growing platform we’ve seen in an industry that has been underserved by software for decades. We’re proud to partner with Neil and John as they build the solution haulers deserve.”
The company serves hundreds of waste haulers across more than 40 states in the U.S. and Canada. Since its launch, the platform has helped manage more than 5 million tons of material.
As part of the funding round, Ventana co-founder and partner Vinay Kumar will join TrashLab’s board. Ershad Jamil, former Chief Growth Officer at ServiceTitan and BuildOps, will also join as an independent director.
TrashLab plans to expand its AI capabilities across customer service, dispatch, collections, and revenue management, with further developments planned through 2027.
