How Hauler Hero is bringing AI to the $145 Billion Waste Management Industry

While artificial intelligence is transforming finance, marketing, and software development, many of the most essential physical industries in the U.S. still operate with tools that haven’t meaningfully changed in decades. Waste management is one of them.

That gap is exactly what Hauler Hero is trying to close.

The New York–based company today announced a $16 million Series A led by Frontier Growth, with participation from Disruptive Founders Fund, Somersault Ventures, and several executives from the waste industry and ServiceTitan. The funding follows a breakout year in which Hauler Hero doubled its customer base, supported more than $300 million in GMV, and helped orchestrate 35 million waste pickups across the U.S.

The company’s goal is straightforward but ambitious: build the first AI-powered operating system for waste management companies.

An Essential Industry Running on Outdated Tools

Waste collection is a $145 billion industry in the U.S., touching nearly every household and business. Yet much of it still runs on paper route sheets, spreadsheets, legacy on-premise software, and manual processes that don’t scale well as fleets and customer bases grow.

Unlike digital-first industries, waste management has to deal with trucks, drivers, routes, physical assets, and narrow margins. Software built for SaaS companies or logistics startups rarely fits the realities of hauling operations. As a result, many haulers have been left out of the broader software and AI boom.

That gap creates real costs. Billing delays hurt cash flow. Inefficient routing wastes fuel. Missed pickups lead to customer churn. And administrative overhead grows faster than revenue as companies scale.

A Single System for the Entire Operation

Hauler Hero positions itself as a central operating system rather than a point solution. Its platform combines invoicing, routing, dispatch, customer management, and reporting into one mobile-friendly interface designed specifically for haulers.

By consolidating these functions, the company says it saves office staff more than 14 hours per week on administrative work. For many operators, that means they can grow without adding back-office headcount.

“Hauler Hero has transformed how we operate,” said Alex Babbitt, owner and founder of Carolina Waste. “We’ve cut billing time in half and automated our routing, which lets our team focus on growth instead of paperwork. We’re serving 25,000 customers now, and I’m confident the platform will scale with us well beyond that.”

The company says this operational leverage improves both cash collection and customer satisfaction, two of the biggest pressure points in the industry.

Moving From Software to AI Agents

The Series A funding is helping Hauler Hero expand beyond workflow automation into AI-driven decision-making tools. Several new products are currently in beta:

• Hero Vision, a truck-mounted camera system that uses computer vision to detect missed services, contamination issues, and potential revenue opportunities in real time.
• Hero Chat, an AI-powered communication layer that handles routine customer questions via text, email, and chat, reducing call volume for office teams.
• Hero Routing, which analyzes data from millions of historical stops to dynamically optimize routes, reduce mileage, and adapt to real-time exceptions like blocked roads or missed pickups.

Together, these tools promise to shift haulers from reactive operations to exception-based management. Instead of discovering problems days later through customer complaints or manual audits, operators can catch issues as they happen.

Changing the Economics of Waste Collection

Investors see Hauler Hero’s opportunity as less about incremental software improvements and more about structural change in a massive industry.

“Hauler Hero is going after a critical vertical that’s been underserved by modern technology for decades,” said Dave Pandullo, partner at Frontier Growth. “They’re not just selling software. They’re changing the unit economics of waste collection by helping operators capture revenue that historically leaked through manual processes.”

That focus appears to be resonating with larger customers as well. Hauler Hero now supports more than 200 waste management organizations, ranging from independent operators to municipalities and large regional players. Customers include West Oahu Aggregate, the City of Sunnyvale, the City of Redlands, and Greenleaf Recycling.

Across those customers, the platform supports roughly 4.5 million pickups per month and serves more than 750,000 commercial and residential waste generators through integrated service and payment portals.

Building Infrastructure, Not Just Apps

For Hauler Hero’s leadership, the mission is about modernizing infrastructure that most people never think about until it breaks.

“Waste collection is one of the most essential services in society, yet it’s been run on outdated tools for decades,” said Mark Hoadley, co-founder and CEO of Hauler Hero. “We’re building the operating system that brings modern data, automation, and AI to the people who keep cities and communities running every day.”

With fresh capital and growing adoption, Hauler Hero is betting that AI’s next major impact won’t just be in digital products, but in the physical systems that power everyday life.

For an industry that has long operated behind the scenes, that shift could be overdue.

Haulers can learn more at https://www.haulerhero.com/