AI + Life Science Enables Recycling of Waste: National Specialized and Sophisticated "Key Little Giant" Weifulai Completes Tens of Millions of Yuan in Series C2 Financing | Exclusive Report by 36Kr
Text | Zhang Bingbing
Editor | A Zhi
36Kr learned that Weifulai (Zhejiang) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Weifulai") recently announced the completion of a tens of millions of yuan Series C2 financing round, with the investor being Bojiang Capital. This is Bojiang Capital's second follow - on investment in Weifulai, and the cumulative investment scale with the previous Series C1 round exceeds 100 million yuan. The funds from this round will be mainly used for the iterative upgrading of high - end intelligent equipment, the expansion of new scenario applications, and the optimization of green digital solutions. Weifulai will start a "AI Green Cycle + Intelligent Manufacturing" cooperation model with Bojiang Capital to accelerate the layout of the technology ecosystem and industrial chain.
Weifulai was established in December 2018, with the mission of "promoting the resource - recycling of waste and improving the living environment". It focuses on the R & D and implementation of AI green complete sets of intelligent equipment and digital solutions. With its "waste recycling" technology, it has been recognized as a national - level specialized, refined, characteristic, and innovative "key little giant".
Centering on the "AI + Life Science and Technology" technical approach, Weifulai's core products cover AI intelligent sorting equipment and a digital management and control platform for waste - free cities. Currently, the projects cover nearly 20 provinces and over 200 cities across the country. It has completed the coverage of the core areas of the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and has achieved full - scale layout in all 11 prefecture - level cities in Zhejiang. The overall revenue scale will reach hundreds of millions of yuan in 2025.
I. AI Equipment + Digital Platform to Achieve a Closed - Loop of Waste Recycling
In recent years, the state has taken the construction of "waste - free cities" as a starting point, focusing on promoting the transformation of waste materials from a "social burden" to "urban minerals". Through scientific classification, efficient sorting, and professional disposal of various types of waste, the recycling of resources is ultimately achieved. Weifulai focuses on the green recycling of waste, with perishable waste and recycled resources as the two high - value and high - demand categories at the core, and has built a complete closed - loop covering front - end classification, mid - end disposal, and back - end resource utilization.
Perishable waste mainly includes kitchen waste, food waste, and organic waste from farmers' markets, which are perishable organic substances generated in daily life and business. Due to their high moisture content and low calorific value, perishable waste is often difficult to directly incinerate or landfill. Coupled with problems such as high cost of resource utilization and insufficient standardization of the recycling system, it has become a "tough nut" in the green recycling of waste.
In response, Weifulai has self - developed an intelligent complete set of equipment for aerobic fermentation of organic waste. Xiong Wei, the chairman of Weifulai, introduced that the equipment is equipped with 28 sensors. Through AI intelligent control of fermentation parameters such as temperature, humidity, and oxygen content, a reduction rate of over 90% is achieved, and resource - based products such as organic fertilizers and soil conditioners are produced. At the same time, it is paired with a "distributed processing model" (on - site reduction, on - site distribution, and small - scale centralized), which can meet the different processing needs from small - scale scenarios with less than 4,000 people to large - scale communities with over 20,000 people.
Recycled resources mainly include waste plastics, metals, paper, glass, etc. Among them, waste sorting is the key first step in achieving resource regeneration. Traditional waste sorting has low efficiency, high cost, and low accuracy. Relying on its self - developed AI intelligent sorting equipment, Weifulai can adapt to the sorting of complex components in industrial scenarios. Paired with intelligent disassembly equipment, it can achieve automatic disassembly and resource - based sorting of large - scale solid waste such as large - scale garbage and waste household appliances.
Specifically, the AI intelligent sorting equipment includes AI sorting embodied robots and AI green sorting complete sets of equipment lines. Based on the intelligent sensing and recognition technology of hyperspectral coupling with visible light, it solves industry problems such as waste occlusion, deformation, and transparency. The AI recognition accuracy is ≥95%, and the sorting accuracy is ≥96%. It can recognize more than 20 types of recyclables, which is 60% - 70% higher than the accuracy of manual sorting.
At the same time, through the integrated design of "intelligent air blowing + robotic arm sorting", the whole process from material feeding to sorting and discharging is unmanned, and it can operate continuously for 24 hours. The daily processing capacity of a single device is 5 - 8 times higher than that of manual operation. In terms of scenarios, it can cover various types of waste such as domestic waste, industrial solid waste, and agricultural and forestry waste, and is suitable for sorting centers in different cities and scales.
Weifulai's mobile waste dry distillation treatment equipment
In response to the pain points in the traditional model, such as the difficulty in tracking real - time classification effects, the lack of support for optimizing the collection and transportation routes, and the opacity of the matching of disposal resources, Weifulai has built a digital governance and control platform for waste - free cities (garbage/sanitation). It integrates multi - dimensional data such as people, vehicles, equipment, and garbage, builds a sanitation big data monitoring center, and monitors core indicators such as the classification delivery rate, recycling volume, transfer route, and disposal effect in real - time. It covers the full - life - cycle digital records of garbage generation, collection, transfer, and disposal. The data cockpit achieves a supervision coverage rate of 98% and a problem traceability rate of 95%, realizing data traceability.
Based on the data and intelligent algorithms, the digital governance and control platform for waste - free cities (garbage/sanitation) built by Weifulai can analyze the laws of garbage generation, sorting efficiency, and disposal bottlenecks, and automatically generate suggestions for optimizing cleaning routes, equipment scheduling, and adjusting classification schemes. It can optimize the collection and transportation routes, reduce the empty driving rate by 15 - 20%, and improve the sanitation operation efficiency by more than 35%, helping to reduce the regional comprehensive management cost by about 25 yuan per ton. "It solves the dilemma of 'extensive management and blind decision - making' in waste governance." Xiong Wei summarized.
II. Equipment + Operation + Revenue Sharing to Run Through the Profit Model
In January 2026, the State Council issued the "Action Plan for Comprehensive Solid Waste Management", clearly stating that "by 2030, significant results will be achieved in the special rectification of solid waste in key areas, the annual comprehensive utilization of bulk solid waste will reach 4.5 billion tons, and the annual recycling of major recycled resources will reach 510 million tons." This not only means that pollution prevention and control should shift from end - of - pipe treatment to full - life - cycle management, but also requires that waste recycling no longer rely on subsidies, but establish its own market economic logic.
In terms of market development, Weifulai adopts a three - in - one model of "equipment sales + operation services + resource - based revenue sharing", in which equipment sales and operation services are the core revenues, and resource - based products are supplementary. Its core customers include governments at all levels and B - end enterprises.
In terms of government cooperation, Weifulai has cooperated with local governments in Jiangxi and other places on the franchise project of kitchen waste treatment. The total investment is 75 million yuan, with a treatment capacity of 150 tons per day. The franchise period is 28 years, covering the full - scale kitchen waste resource utilization in three counties. It has also cooperated with local governments in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, etc. to build a nearly 30,000 - square - meter recycled resource recycling and sorting center, with an annual recycling volume of over 120,000 tons, covering all residential communities in the area, and has built a standardized recycling station and an Internet of Things traceability platform.
In terms of enterprise cooperation, Weifulai has reached supply - chain and technology cooperation with Hikvision, China Mobile, Dahua Group, etc., providing them with intelligent hardware adaptation and digital management and control platform support. It has also cooperated with Hengyi Petrochemical, Shanying Paper, etc. on industrial solid waste treatment projects, creating an intelligent digital transformation solution for "waste - free factories". At the same time, it has carried out industry - university - research cooperation with Zhejiang University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Hangzhou Academy of Forestry Sciences, etc., jointly researching technologies such as AI and data innovation, microbial fermentation, and high - value utilization of straw.
Schematic diagram of Weifulai's waste AI intelligent sorting and disposal line
In 2025, Weifulai Group signed new orders worth over 500 million yuan, with an expected revenue scale of 350 million yuan, and has achieved profitability. "In the next 2 - 3 years, Weifulai will maintain a growth rate of about 50% per year, and is in a leading growth position in the industry." Xiong Wei introduced that Weifulai's gross profit margin is higher than the industry average, and the profit support comes from three cores:
First, the high added value of intelligent equipment sales. Equipment with a unit price of 200,000 - 1 million yuan per unit is paired with 3 - year free AI algorithm upgrades, creating a premium space. Second, the stable cash flow from long - term operation services. Through models such as BOT/BOO, it binds government and enterprise customers, and the equipment networking service fees and resource - based revenue sharing contribute to the income. Third, the value - added effect of resource - based products. Products such as organic fertilizers and degradable fibers achieve a revenue - sharing income of 15% - 30%.
Nie Wen, the co - founder of Weifulai, introduced that in the future, Weifulai will adhere to the dual - wheel - driven technology strategy of "focusing on classification and focusing on reuse". On the one hand, it will concentrate R & D resources to tackle the AI sorting embodied robot to improve the intelligent limit of waste classification. On the other hand, through cutting - edge technologies such as biotechnology, it will explore the high - value utilization potential of waste, such as extracting oil/biogas from kitchen waste to convert it into green energy.
In terms of specific implementation goals, a green sorting embodied robot intelligent manufacturing base will be built in Zhejiang with a total investment of 250 million yuan. The goal is to build a fully automated intelligent manufacturing base. After reaching full production, it will achieve an annual production capacity of 5,000 sets of green sorting embodied robots and supporting equipment. Through the independent and large - scale production of core components, the cost per unit will be reduced, and the market penetration of intelligent equipment will be accelerated.
Investor's Viewpoint
Luo Tian, the chairman of Bojiang Capital: Since investing in Weifulai in 2021, Bojiang Capital has firmly believed in the long - term value of the company in the smart environmental protection and waste resource utilization track. We highly recognize the professionalism and dedication of the Weifulai team in the field of environmental protection technology. We are also pleased to see the rapid development of Weifulai. In the future, Bojiang will continue to accompany and deeply empower Weifulai to help it become a leading enterprise in China's AI environmental protection and resource utilization solutions.
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This article is from the WeChat official account "36Kr Future Industries". Author: Zhang Bingbing, A Zhi. Republished by 36Kr with permission.