Just got the iPhone 5, and don’t know what to do with your perfectly fine iPhone 4? (Jerk). Well, there’s a growing amount of cell phone recycling kiosks coming to malls near you that will pay you cash for your discarded gadgets. ecoATM, a startup that is building out these networks, has just raised $41 million in debt and options, according to a filing, which could help it start pushing out a much higher volume of these kiosks.
Five-year-old ecoATM’s kiosks use technology to identify the recycled item (like your basically new iPhone), quantify its condition and worth, and offer you compensation in cash or coupons. The company has about 300 kiosks across 20 states as of now, spokeswoman Anita Giani tells me, which is up from the 50 kiosks they had installed about a year ago.
That’s steady growth, though a bit slower ramp up than they had expected a few years ago. But Giani says that ecoATM is looking to install hundreds of kiosks more this year, and has also expanded the types of devices it can accept to recently to include tablets.
ecoATM’s kiosks also have wireless connections, and the boxes use software from startup Axeda to run diagnostics and do remote management. The company can do remote software refreshes on its kiosks, and it can also fix any problems with the kiosks without having to send a technician in person out to each kiosk.
Source: GigaOM