David Berg learned a lot about the waste management industry by driving trash trucks around the country as the first employee of Battle Motors in Ohio.
He discovered that despite the vast number of sales exploration platforms, sales to the waste management industry remain an offline effort.
“There was a way for them all to go to unanimous markets, which was a traditional way of technology that was rarely used in both traditional pen and paper, door-to-door knocks, CRM exploration or sales funnels,” Berg told TechCrunch. “We found the first opportunity to not only build within the space, but to disrupt the entire market.”
Berg launched its sales exploration platform built for Customer Relations Manager (CRM) and waste management in early 2024, and other industrial services such as Dumpstar Rental and Industrial Recyclers to fill that gap.
Berg, who is also CEO of Commanderai, said Salesforce or Hubspot can be customized for the waste management industry, but the technology is too complex and lacks the nuances needed by the industry. Commanderai software is more suitable for the type of contracts used by waste management companies, he said.
These platforms do not have the specific type of data that waste management companies use to find customers, Berg said. Waste management companies sell to small, independent businesses that may not have an online presence, or to new construction projects that are not widely advertised. Commanderai uses AI to pull that information out to users.
“That data is essentially available somewhere on the public web, but you can segment it and make it reusable where it actually works,” Berg said. “That’s where the AI (large language model) pipeline appears. There’s even more nuance within the waste.”
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Waste management is not a small industry. The US waste management industry generated more than $100 billion in revenue in 2024, according to the Industry Trade Organization. Industry players are a diverse mix of waste carriers, from just a handful of trucks to $90 billion giant waste management.
“The way we’re getting closer to them is, ‘Hey, I know you have a way of selling. You’ve been doing this for over 20 years. What we need to do is help us sell more efficiently,” Berg said. “We’re not here to replace your sales team. We’re not here to change the way you do it.”
The company’s platform is designed to work for carriers with one truck, from enterprise-sized companies to enterprise-sized companies, and currently focuses on players from mid- to large regional areas. Currently, the company is successful in medical and dangerous waste management companies.
Commanderai has raised a $5 million seed round led by 11 Tribes Ventures with participation from Watchfire Ventures, Gaingels and the Rad Fund. Berg said the company will use capital to “pour petrol into the fire” and will increase its sales team in large quantities, in addition to building products with features such as mapping, marketing and routing.
“Most investors, at least on the list of investors, have no real investments in waste management,” Berg said. “There are only about 10 active software providers across the industry. Many of them were really investor education. Here’s what we sell, here’s how we operate them.”
The company plans to expand outside of waste management and to adjacent industries, even when timing is correct.
“We want to use 30% of the waste management industry to use Commanderai AI as the lead source for our AI tools, and in fact we want to use all sorts of tools within our technology stack,” says Berg.
This work has been updated to correct the spelling of Battle Motor.
