In U.S. factories and warehouses, billions of dollars of unused equipment sit idle every year. Analysts estimate that in 2025 alone, American manufacturers will carry $350 billion in surplus capital equipment and related maintenance, repair, and operations expenditures. Globally, that figure rises above $2 trillion. Managing that surplus is not only a financial challenge but also an environmental one, as unused equipment often ends up scrapped or in landfills.
Trey Closson and Taha Zinifi, Amplio, saw this problem as an opportunity for software. Founded in 2021 and based in San Francisco and Atlanta, the company has built AI-powered agents that process massive volumes of surplus inventory for large manufacturers. These agents can identify opportunities to redeploy equipment across facilities, or when redeployment isn’t possible, appraise items at the SKU level for resale on Amplio’s private marketplace.
The company this week raised $11.1 million in Series A funding from investors including Hitachi Ventures and Yamaha Motor Ventures to expand its operations and further develop its AI systems. Existing investors, including Construct Capital, Slow Ventures, Alpaca VC, and High Alpha Capital, also participated.
“We believe the future of manufacturing is intelligent, circular, and AI-native. By surfacing and realizing the value of stagnant surplus, Amplio is here to make that future real,” Closson said.
AI Agents and a Private Marketplace
Amplio’s system is pitched as a way for manufacturers to extract more value from assets that would otherwise remain idle. The company’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Taha Zinifi, describes the work as an effort to apply agentic AI to one of the most entrenched problems in supply chain management.
“Agentic AI is poised to transform global supply chain operations fundamentally. AI agents are capable of constantly monitoring operations, detecting major opportunities for optimization, predicting and mitigating disruptions. However, with disparate system interfaces and fragmented data, building AI Agents to help enterprises more efficiently manage their surplus assets is hard, and the stakes are high. Amplio built agentic systems that reason within these environments and continuously improve their performance,” Zinifi said.
The marketplace component is central to the company’s model. Once inventory has been appraised, it can be listed on Amplio’s private exchange, which the company says attracts vetted industrial buyers. Customers such as Georgia-Pacific, NCR Voyix, and Holland America have used the platform, with reported recovery rates up to five times higher than industry standards.
Funding and Expansion Plans
The new capital will be directed toward expanding go-to-market operations and further development of its agentic AI systems. Amplio also plans to broaden its coverage into new categories of surplus, including rolling stock, raw materials, and finished goods.
Investors see potential in the company’s focus on both economic and environmental outcomes. “The Amplio team deployed its deep domain experience and technical expertise to develop a proof of concept for circularity to be both scalable and profitable. Hitachi Ventures is excited to support Amplio’s efforts to address the large-scale economic and environmental challenges presented by the real-world problem of industrial inventory surplus,” said Pete Bastien, a partner at Hitachi Ventures.
Circularity as a Competitive Strategy
Amplio positions itself at the intersection of artificial intelligence, the circular economy, and industrial resilience. By helping manufacturers divert unused assets from waste streams, the company argues that circularity can become a competitive advantage rather than a cost center. To date, Amplio reports that it has diverted thousands of tons of equipment from disposal while returning millions of dollars in recovered value to its customers.
The broader industrial surplus market is fragmented, with manufacturers often relying on a patchwork of resellers, recycling firms, and liquidation services. Amplio’s proposition is that AI can streamline the process at scale, converting what has historically been written off as loss into usable capital.
Whether the company can establish itself as a standard in this category will depend on its ability to expand its marketplace, maintain buyer trust, and demonstrate consistent returns for manufacturers. With $11.1 million in new capital, Amplio has secured the backing to pursue that ambition.
