Kudoti

Kudoti is a South African waste-technology company operating a digital platform that traces recyclable materials across the reverse supply chain and connects brands, manufacturers, collectors and recyclers. The platform tracks recyclable waste in real time and matches supply to demand, with the aim of improving market conditions for recovered materials and raising recycling rates. Its name is the Zulu word for 'trash'.

The product is multi-stream, handling e-waste, plastics, paper, glass and bottles, metals and other materials, and provides end-to-end reverse supply chain coverage with vertical integrations for payments, logistics, financing, incentives and contract management. Kudoti also applies IoT sensors to collect data that feeds its software for optimising waste logistics and processing, and offers matchmaking and optimisation features intended to maximise the value of recovered material. The system is modular and API-based, and is positioned for use by both informal-sector recycling SMEs and large waste management companies.

For FMCG brand customers, Kudoti supports sustainability targets by improving collection rates and supplying real-time data for decision-making and sustainable material procurement, covering strategy design, implementation, and tracking, tracing and reporting.

Founding story

Kudoti was founded in 2019 by Gift Lubele, a former research engineer who serves as co-founder, and Matthieu de Gaudemar, who has been described as co-founder and CEO. Lubele has framed the opportunity around the inefficiency of paper-based processes and manual services in African waste management, which compress margins for waste stakeholders, and around the view that waste is an untapped resource on which the continent could lead in the circular economy.

Business model

Kudoti provides software to brands, waste management companies and recyclers that digitises reverse supply chains for recyclable materials. The platform is modular and API-based so it can be configured per client, and the company also offers services spanning circular-economy strategy development, implementation, and ongoing tracking, tracing and reporting.

Traction

Documented traction consists mainly of corporate programme partnerships with Distell and Nestlé, support from the Google for Startups Black Founder Fund Africa, and a series of awards between 2020 and 2021, including the South African AIM startup pitch title, the BRICS young innovator award, recognition as 2020 Most Innovative Company in South Africa, and the $40,000 Nestlé Creating Shared Value Prize.

Latest developments

Kudoti was named a winner of Nestlé's 2021 Creating Shared Value Prize, which carried a $40,000 cash award along with mentoring and potential collaboration with Nestlé, and the co-founders said the funds would be used to scale the solution in South Africa. The company was subsequently featured by the Founder Institute among its fastest-growing EMEA alumni companies.