TrashLab Raises $12M to Scale the AI-Native Operating System for Waste Haulers
New funding accelerates agentic workflows across customer service, dispatch, billing and collections for hundreds of
Press Release Disclaimer: This is a press release distributed through the XPR Media network. It has not been independently verified by our newsroom.
TrashLab, an AI-native operating system for waste haulers, today announced it has raised a $12 million growth round led by early-growth equity firm Ventana, with participation from existing investors Bienville Capital, Harlem Capital, and CreativeCo. TrashLab will use the funding to accelerate its product roadmap, expand its agentic workflows, and grow its go-to-market team. As part of the round, Vinay Kumar, Co-founder and Partner at Ventana becomes a TrashLab board member and Ershad Jamil, former Chief Growth Officer at ServiceTitan and BuildOps, also joins the board as an independent director.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261029417588/en/
TrashLab founders John Tan (CTO) and Neil Chaudhary (CEO).
The U.S. waste and recycling industry is a $105B essential service, according to Waste Business Journal, yet its technology lags far behind other industries. Incumbent platforms were built more than 20 years ago and grew largely through acquisition, while newer entrants are bolting AI onto architectures designed for an earlier era. As ownership passes to a new generation and customers expect real-time service and digital billing, the best-run haulers are moving to AI-native technology.
“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.”
TrashLab replaces the spreadsheets, paper routes, and legacy systems haulers have long relied on with one platform spanning call center and CRM, dispatch and routing, in-cab driver app and cameras, billing and native payments, and back-office reporting. TrashLab’s AI order-taking agent, Haul-E, answers inbound calls and captures after-hours orders so no customer request goes unanswered, and nearly 80% of TrashLab customers now use it.
Haulers have managed more than 5 million tons of material on TrashLab since launch, and the platform now serves hundreds of haulers across 40+ states in the U.S. and Canada. Annual contract value has grown more than 7x since 2024 as customers adopt additional modules across their lines of business.
“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.”
TrashLab was founded in 2022 by Neil Chaudhary (CEO), a former BCG and EY-Parthenon consultant, and John Tan (CTO), a former senior engineer at Stripe and Google. With the new funding, the company is building fully agentic workflows across customer service, dispatch, collections and revenue intelligence, with rollout planned through 2027. In the coming months, TrashLab plans to expand its engineering, go-to-market, and customer success teams. For more information, including open roles, visit www.trashlab.com.
About TrashLab
TrashLab is the AI-native operating system for waste haulers, unifying CRM, dispatch, routing, billing, payments, and reporting in a single platform. Founded in 2022 by Neil Chaudhary and John Tan, TrashLab serves haulers across roll-off, residential, commercial and septic lines of business, helping operators replace fragmented, outdated tools with one modern system built for the industry. Learn more at www.trashlab.com or follow TrashLab on LinkedIn.
About Ventana
Ventana is an early-growth equity firm that backs founders building AI for overlooked industries, in the window between breakout and buyout. Based in San Francisco, Ventana partners closely with high-growth, capital-efficient companies while keeping founders in control. Learn more at www.ventana.capital.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261029417588/en/
Media gallery
