Humara raises €1.2M Seed to set the standard for modern waste plants globally

Humara, the Galicia-based software company rebuilding how waste and recycling plants are designed and operated, today announced the close of a €1.2 million Seed round led by Impact Shakers, with new investor Inclimo joining and full follow-on participation from existing backers Zubi Capital, Ship2B Ventures and the company's angel syndicate.

Founded in 2021 by Laura Rodríguez Álvarez, Martín Nogueira Salgueiro and Víctor González, Humara replaces the spreadsheets and disconnected CAD files that still underpin most waste-plant engineering with a physics-based SaaS platform. Its software simulates 82 distinct waste materials through real separation equipment, compressing design cycles from roughly four months to a matter of days. To date, more than 250 plants across Europe and Latin America have been designed on Humara, with customers including Veolia, FCC, PreZero, EGF, Ecoembes and Bianna reporting cost reductions above 70% and faster, more confident bidding on complex RFPs.

"Every plant we help design today will operate for the next 25 years — and most of them are still being engineered in Excel," said Laura Rodríguez Álvarez, co-founder and CEO of Humara. "That gap is what gets us out of bed. This round lets us close it faster: more waste streams, more markets, and a live operations layer that finally lets the people on the plant floor make decisions in seconds instead of hours. 

This is where Humara Operate comes in. It extends the company's design capability into daily plant management. Built on the same simulation engine, it turns static plant models into real-time Digital Twins, integrating live SCADA signals, optical sorter data, and operational KPIs to deliver predictive insights and decision support for plant teams. Early deployments show a 4% reduction in landfill reject rates, 4% more material recovery, an €800k annual profit uplift, and 5–7% lower OpEx per plant. 

Together, Design and Operate close the loop from concept to performance on a unified data backbone.

"The future of waste management lies in plants that operate with full flexibility — resilient infrastructure that embraces change instead of being disrupted by it," added Laura Rodríguez, co-founder of Humara.

"Humara combines three decades of plant-floor expertise with serious engineering depth, and that is an extraordinary competitive advantage for any operator working with them," said Yonca Braeckman, Founder and CEO of Impact Shakers. "Waste infrastructure is the unglamorous backbone of the circular economy, and the tools running it have been frozen for decades. Humara is going to change the sector - a true example of what happens when you combine deep technical expertise with a commercial mindset and a passion for customers. We believe this team will set the operating standard for waste plants across Europe and beyond."

The new capital will fuel four priorities: scaling Humara Design across additional European and Latin American markets and waste streams; rolling out Humara Operate and its agentic AI copilot, Duplantis, which connects to live SCADA data to guide operator decisions in real time; expanding commercially across the EU and LatAm; and building the team behind both products.