German ICT product recycling company Teqcycle Solutions, a 2013 a spin-off from Teqport Services, has attracted an undisclosed amount of funding from T-Venture, the corporate venture capital unit of Deutsche Telekom Group. The equity stake acquired has not been made public, however, the fact that the German antitrust authorities must approve the deal, would suggest that the stake could be significant.
The attraction to Teqcycle is strategic for T-Venture and Deutsche Telekom, in that the target investment can promote the sustainability of recycling its products and other ICT products. Deutsche Telekom is already one of the major partners of Teqcycle and has used the solution for several years as a part of its customer service initiatives. Other customers include big name retailers, large corporations and government bodies.
Teqcycle’s Shop-Take-Back-Solution, for example, offers retail partners and their customers an app based or web based solution which calculates the trade-in value of a mobile phone. The calculated trade-in value is directly subtracted from the price of an item bought at the retailer. Consumers can enter a Telekom shop and trade-in mobile phones of any manufacturer and operator and save on a new purchase.
Corporations can also make use of the Business-Phone-Take-Back-Solution, which allows for an easy and save swop of their mobile phones. All devices undergo a DEKRA-certified take back process including data deletion and will be checked and resold by Teqcycle. Teqcycle guarantees complete deletion of sensitive business data.
T-Venture’s Thomas Vogel said that the investor sees this segment of the IT recycling sector as “very attractive”. Vogel said that the company has strong growth potential because it tailors its services to the needs of retail partners, manufacturers and operators. “This creates opportunities to scale the business strongly,” he said.
Lead investor T-Venture is joined in the financing round by Barkawi Group, the majority shareholder of Teqcycle and by the management. The investment is subject to approval by antitrust authorities.