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The Interview
DAVID EDMONSON Co-Founder of
eRecycling Group Inc., the parent company of E-Recycling, LLC, the world’s leading provider of carrier-grade, incentivized, mobile device trade-in and reuse solutions, recently secured a $105 million Series C financing. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers leads the group of inside investors who are joined by Silver Lake Kraftwerk, a global leader in technology investing focused on energy and resource innovation. Co-founder and CEO, David Edmonson, spoke to Finance Monthly to share details of the financing and the company’s plans for the future.
D
avid Edmondson co-founded eRecyclingCorps in 2009 as a green growth company with a unique solution to extend the life and optimize the value of
used wireless devices.
David has more than 25 years of experience in large scale retail and mass merchandising. He started with ADVO, a marketing and distribution company in 1983. During his 11 years with the company, it grew from $50 million in sales to $1.1 billion and went public. David left ADVO to become the Vice President of Marketing for RadioShack in 1994. Over the next 11 years, RadioShack nearly doubled its revenue, and he moved to the role of President and CEO before leaving in February 2006.
David then turned his sights toward
entrepreneurial endeavors and founded EasySale, Inc. (a consumer services firm brokering Internet based sales transactions) in March 2007.
“It was there that co-founder, Ron LeMay and I discovered the residual value inherent in used mobile devices and set out with our goal of transforming the wireless ecosystem”
What more can you tell us about eRecycling Group?
eRecyclingCorps was founded in 2009 to focus on eliminating e-waste by repurposing used wireless devices. We are committed to transforming the wireless ecosystem by providing a reliable, responsible way of extending the life and optimizing the value of used wireless devices. We are reducing economic and environmental
waste—and
helping enhance digital inclusion—by making sure used devices are collected, diverted from drawers (and ultimately landfills) and redistributed to those who need them most.
How has the company developed in recent years?
We collected more than seven-million mobile devices in 2012 and we are on target to significantly exceed that number this year. In May of this year, we set the industry standard by collecting more than 1.1 million phones in a single month. We are the market leader in North America, with established collection programs with four of the region’s largest wireless service providers, and this year we successfully launched two major trade-in programs with Tier 1 carrier partners in Europe. We continue to enhance and streamline our industry leading processing capabilities and are building strong