Visia

Basic Information

Applicant Type: Organisation

Organisation Name: Visia

Main Questions

Problem Solution

Problem:
Lithium-ion batteries are now everywhere, from vapes to e-bikes, and increasingly end up in the waste stream. Many of these batteries are not loose; they’re embedded in devices, making them difficult to identify. When crushed, punctured, or exposed to heat during processing, these batteries can trigger thermal events that result in fires, explosions, and significant facility damage.

Battery-related fires are now one of the leading safety concerns across the recycling and waste industry. Despite the urgency, most facilities still rely on visual inspection or downstream robotics to catch batteries—both of which are ineffective when devices are hidden under bags, food waste, or construction debris. There's a critical need for upstream, automated detection that works at the point of intake.

Unfortunately, this issue is only getting worse. Global demand for lithium-ion batteries is expected to grow fivefold by 2030, driven by the rise of electrification and consumer electronics. As production increases, so too will the volume of batteries disposed of improperly, especially in municipalities and regions that lack convenient or clear battery drop-off systems. Meanwhile, recycling infrastructure has not kept pace with the complexity of modern waste streams.

Solution:
Visia enables early detection using X-ray and AI. We install proprietary X-ray and camera systems at key material entry points—tip floors, loading bays, or inbound conveyors—and scan every load for batteries and other high-risk items before they can enter processing lines. Our AI platform, trained on over one million tagged images from the field, can detect batteries even when they’re embedded in electronics or buried beneath other materials.

We’re already deployed at over 25 sites across e-scrap, municipal, WTE, and C&D operators. Our systems catch more than 100 batteries per day per facility on average, with 95%+ detection accuracy. Customers report fewer fire incidents, fewer unplanned shutdowns, and major gains in operational efficiency.

Beyond safety, our platform contributes to material recovery. Every battery we detect upstream is one more that can be safely removed and sent for proper recycling, recovering critical minerals like cobalt, lithium, and nickel.
In short, Visia delivers the first scalable, field-tested solution to the battery fire crisis in waste. By enabling true visibility into inbound waste, through occlusion, burden depth, and across all material types, we allow operators to improve safety and efficiency.

Impact

Queensland’s waste and recycling facilities are under growing pressure from fire risks caused by lithium-ion batteries entering the stream hidden inside everyday items. These batteries are increasingly found in compact loads of municipal waste, commercial skips, and e-waste, often sealed inside consumer electronics and hard to spot. The impact of deploying this technology in Queensland would span five key areas:

1. Safer Operations and Fewer Fires
Thermal events linked to lithium-ion batteries have increased across Australia in recent years. Queensland facilities, including several in the southeast, have experienced major fires that disrupted operations and required emergency response. Our technology helps prevent these incidents entirely by catching batteries before they enter processing lines, improving safety for workers and reducing emergency-related downtime.

2. Progress Toward the 2030 Waste Management and Resource Recovery Strategy
Visia directly supports Queensland’s strategic targets: reducing landfill, increasing recovery, and building a resilient, modern waste system. By identifying batteries and other prohibited materials early, facilities can better control contamination, reduce processing damage, and improve diversion rates. More reliable recovery of hazardous and valuable materials strengthens the overall performance of the system.

3. Increased Recovery of Critical Minerals
Early identification ensures batteries can be separated and sent for proper recycling, instead of being damaged or destroyed during processing. This supports the state’s growing efforts to build local infrastructure for recovering lithium, cobalt, and nickel—key minerals in Queensland’s future resource economy.

4. Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings
Facilities using Visia have seen 200–300% improvements in presort efficiency and significantly fewer emergency stoppages. These gains translate into more consistent throughput, fewer equipment repairs, and optimized use of labor. For Queensland’s regional councils and private operators alike, this means lower operating costs and better reliability in service delivery.

5. Broader Community and Environmental Benefits
While not a public-facing solution, the impact extends into surrounding communities. Preventing facility fires near urban areas protects air quality and reduces pressure on emergency services. Cleaner inbound material also reduces environmental impacts at landfills and downstream recyclers.

Business Model

Organisation Overview:
Visia is a New York-based company building the recycled materials industry’s first AI-powered material visibility platform. Founded in 2020, Visia’s team brings together technical expertise in computer vision and machine learning with deep operational experience in waste and recycling. Our leadership includes engineers with backgrounds at Columbia University, former operators from firms like Blackstone, and a commercial team with experience at companies like Waste Management.

We currently have 25+ systems deployed across the U.S. and Canada at MRFs, e-scrap facilities, waste-to-energy plants, construction and demolition sites, and scrapyards. Our team of 20 supports deployments across engineering, customer success, and commercial development. To date, Visia has raised over $13M in venture capital from investors including Shine Capital and Neotribe, as well as strategic angels from PayPal, JetBlue, OpenAI, and others.

Business Model:
We operate under a Hardware + SaaS model. Customers typically pay an upfront hardware and installation fee, followed by an annual platform license. The system includes X-ray and camera units built in partnership with a global X-ray manufacturer, paired with our proprietary AI platform that delivers real-time alerts, data dashboards, and automated reporting tools. For most facilities, a single Visia unit is installed at the primary inbound stream (tip floor, feed conveyor, etc.). Multi-line sites may opt for additional units, depending on throughput and layout. Most of our customers sign multi-year contracts, providing a stable base of recurring revenue.

Path to Scale:
We have already passed the “launch” threshold for a viable business. Customer feedback has been strong, and most sites are now expanding use of our platform across multiple facilities. That said, we see a clear path for deeper scale. Our goal is to reach 100 active units within the next 18 months, which would make the business sustainably cash-flow positive.

Market Readiness

Technology Readiness Level:
Visia’s core product is currently at TRL 8–9. The technology has been built, field-tested, and is in continuous use across multiple commercial settings. We have full deployments running at 25+ recycling and waste processing facilities across North America, with additional installations underway.

Piloting Completed to Date:
We have completed successful pilots across various verticals, including e-scrap, municipal recycling, construction & demolition, waste-to-energy, and scrap metal. These pilots validated both hazard detection performance (particularly for embedded lithium-ion batteries) and operational fit within existing facility workflows. In each case, the pilot transitioned into full commercial deployment, with several customers expanding to additional sites.

Remaining Testing and Piloting:
The core product does not require further technical testing for general waste and recycling applications given it is already commercially available. However, localized pilots may be helpful when entering new geographies like Queensland to tailor system settings to specific waste compositions, regulatory requirements, or infrastructure differences. We also continue to iterate on our software interface and data integrations to better meet regional reporting or compliance needs.

Anticipated Timeframes for Product Development and Piloting:
• Estimated number of weeks' notice needed to run a pilot: 6–8 weeks from signed agreement to shipping equipment, depending on site complexity and import timelines.
• Estimated number of weeks the pilot would take: 4–6 weeks for installation, calibration, operator training, and in-field validation.
• Estimated number of weeks from pilot to commercial launch: 2–4 weeks post-pilot to transition into a commercial rollout. This typically includes integrating with existing reporting systems if needed, and scheduling hardware expansion if scaling to other lines or sites.

Our deployment model is well-established, and our team has delivered successful installs in a variety of facility layouts. We are equipped to support new pilots and expansions with relatively short lead times.

Team

The Visia team combines strong technical foundations with commercial and operational experience across waste, recycling, and industrial technology. Team members have academic backgrounds from top universities like Harvard, alongside professional experience in infrastructure investment, software engineering, industrial operations, and enterprise sales. This combination has enabled us to deliver and scale complex solutions in a challenging, under-digitized sector.

We’ve developed a structured process for delivery that includes system configuration, on-site installation, staff training, and ongoing support. Our internal teams manage each stage of implementation, ensuring minimal disruption to facility operations. Most installations are completed in under two weeks once hardware is on-site, and all systems are supported remotely to enable performance monitoring and rapid troubleshooting.

Commercially, we’ve demonstrated repeatable traction across multiple verticals. Our customers range from national operators to regional processors, and our platform is offered through multi-year contracts that include both hardware and software components. Our model has proven attractive to customers focused on improving safety, reducing downtime, and gaining better visibility into their material streams.

Many of our customers have expanded from an initial pilot to full network deployment. After seeing strong results, several operators have opted to standardize Visia’s platform across all of their active facilities. In multiple cases, this transition from a single-site pilot to a fleet-wide rollout has occurred within just a few months, reflecting both the reliability of the technology and the strength of our implementation process.

Our customer-facing structure includes teams dedicated to deployments, technical support, and account success—ensuring that each project is followed through from procurement to go-live and beyond. This internal alignment has helped us scale efficiently and maintain strong working relationships with our partners.

The team’s industry familiarity is grounded in real-world fieldwork: we’ve spent time at hundreds of waste facilities across North America and have built our platform in close collaboration with operators. This has translated into a solution that is both technically advanced and practical to implement, designed around the throughput, layout, and staffing models common across waste processing environments.

Through these projects, we’ve consistently demonstrated our ability to deliver technology that works in high-throughput, variable conditions and to support customers through both installation and long-term use. With our current momentum and systems in continuous operation, we are now scaling to new sites and preparing for international expansion.