Humara, a Galicia-based software company rebuilding how waste and recycling plants are designed and operated, today announced the close of its €1.2 million Seed round to scale its physics-based design platform and roll out Duplantis, an AI copilot for live plant operations.
The round was 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.
Laura Rodríguez Álvarez, co-founder and CEO of Humara, said, “Every plant we help design today will operate for the next 25 years — and most of them are still being engineered in Excel. 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.”
Founded in 2021 by Laura Rodríguez Álvarez, Martín Nogueira Salgueiro, and Víctor González, Humara is an AI-powered SaaS platform for waste infrastructure, purpose-built to streamline the design and operation of waste and recycling plants. It claims to replace the spreadsheets and disconnected CAD files that still underpin most waste-plant engineering with a physics-based SaaS platform.
The company states that its software simulates 82 distinct waste materials through real separation equipment, compressing design cycles from roughly four months to a matter of days.
The company’s two main services are Humara Design and Humara Operate. Humara Design focuses on physics-based plant design, providing features like mass balance, equipment sizing, scenario comparison, and deliverables that can be exported, all tailored for engineering teams.
Whereas Operate 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% higher material recovery, an €800k annual profit uplift, and 5–7% lower OpEx per plant, says the company.
The startup also reports that over 250 plants across Europe and Latin America have been designed using Humara. Its customers, including Veolia, FCC, PreZero, EGF, Ecoembes, and Bianna, are reporting cost savings of over 70% and are able to bid on complex RFPs with greater confidence.
Yonca Braeckman, founder and CEO of Impact Shakers, said, “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.
“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.”
With the new funding, the company aims to expand Humara Design into more European and Latin American markets and waste streams. It will also roll out Humara Operate along with its AI copilot, Duplantis, which connects to live SCADA data to support real-time operator decisions. Additionally, the company plans to grow its commercial presence across the EU and LatAm and strengthen the team supporting both products.
“The future of waste management lies in plants that operate with full flexibility — resilient infrastructure that embraces change instead of being disrupted by it,” concluded Álvarez.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/05/spains-humara-raises-e1-2-million-to-cut-waste-plant-design-cycles-from-months-to-days-with-ai-saas/
