swagcycle

What swagcycle does

SwagCycle is a Woburn, Massachusetts-based sustainability services company founded in 2019 that helps enterprises responsibly dispose of obsolete branded merchandise, including apparel, promotional products, and workwear, through donation, recycling, upcycling, and secure destruction. The company's core offering is a three-step process—Assess, Confirm Brand Guidelines, and Landfill Diversion—underpinned by a proprietary nationwide network of hundreds of vetted charitable partners and best-in-class recycling facilities, with technical capabilities including Near-Infrared (NIR) material scanning, fiber-to-fiber recycling, and energy recovery systems for handling complex multi-material projects.

SwagCycle operates as a portfolio company of Grossman Marketing Group, a fourth-generation marketing services firm, and runs a quote-based, project-driven professional services engagement model. The model is explicitly targeted at companies undergoing rebranding, mergers, acquisitions, or marketing campaign wind-downs, with particular emphasis on brand-protective secure disposal for financial institutions and on promotional product distributors seeking sustainability solutions for their corporate clients. Distribution is dual-channel: direct enterprise field sales with consultation/demo engagement, and partner referral through promotional products distributors such as Kotis Design, BAMKO, and S&S Activewear. Marketing relies on content/earned media—industry trade press, podcasts, blog content, gated white papers, and annual impact reports—rather than paid acquisition.

Since launch the company has facilitated $12,603,077 in cumulative charitable donations and kept 3,345,716 items out of landfills as of 12/31/25, with notable enterprise engagements including the Meta/Facebook rebrand (2022, cross-border U.S./U.K.), a largest-to-date recycling project for a global professional services firm using NIR and fiber-to-fiber processing (2025), and a safety vest recycling program with Stonewerx Promotional (2025). As of 2025, no external institutional funding or venture capital rounds have been disclosed.

Name

swagcycle

Legal name

SwagCycle

Website

https://swagcycle.net

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Short description

SwagCycle is a sustainability service that helps enterprises responsibly dispose of obsolete branded merchandise through donation, recycling, upcycling, and secure destruction, leveraging a proprietary network of charitable and recycling partners. It serves companies undergoing rebranding, M&A, or marketing campaign wind-downs.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Branded Merchandise Disposal and Recycling Services

NAICS

Other Waste Collection (562119), Waste Management and Remediation Services (562), Materials Recovery Facilities (562920), Materials Recovery Facilities (56292)

SIC

Refuse Systems (4953), Sanitary Services (4950)

akta.pro primary industry

Donation, Reuse & Sustainability Returns Programs (TLAIAHAJ)

akta.pro secondary industries

Circular Economy & Waste/Materials Reporting (Zero waste, packaging) (EUAHAJAL), On-site Recycling Programs (Single-Stream, Source-Separated) (BPABALAB)

Keywords

• Branded merchandise disposal
• Promotional product recycling
• Corporate swag donation
• Textile recycling services
• Landfill diversion solutions

Headquarters

HQ city

Woburn

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Personnel, Supply Chain, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Merchandise Disposal Services: SwagCycle charges companies for responsible disposal services including assessment, matching with charitable partners or recycling facilities, and coordination of logistics. The service handles inventory assessment, brand guideline compliance, and landfill diversion.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

SwagCycle operates a proprietary network platform that helps companies responsibly dispose of obsolete branded merchandise through a three-step process of assessing inventory, confirming brand guidelines, and routing items to landfill diversion pathways including charitable donations, recycling, upcycling, or secure destruction. The company leverages a nationwide network of vetted charitable partners and best-in-class recycling facilities to match each company's inventory with the most appropriate disposition route, supported by advanced material processing technologies such as NIR scanning, fiber-to-fiber recycling, and secure de-branding services for regulated industries.

Product overview

SwagCycle is a single unified platform for responsible branded merchandise lifecycle management. The core offering is a 3-step process (Assess, Confirm Brand Guidelines, Landfill Diversion) that helps companies repurpose, recycle, and donate obsolete branded merchandise. Services include charitable donations through a proprietary network of nonprofit partners, textile recycling with advanced processing (NIR scanning, fiber-to-fiber recycling), upcycling into new products like tote bags, and secure destruction services for brand protection in regulated industries like banking.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• SwagCycle Branded Merchandise Lifecycle Management A sustainability platform and managed service that helps companies repurpose, recycle, and donate obsolete branded merchandise through a three-step process (Assess inventory, Confirm Brand Guidelines, execute Landfill Diversion). It serves enterprises undergoing rebranding, M&A, or end-of-campaign inventory clearance by routing items to charitable partners, recycling facilities, upcycling specialists, or secure destruction pathways.
• Safety Vest Recycling Program A trade-in and recycling program for safety vests and similar workwear, developed with Stonewerx Promotional, that processes used field gear into insulation, carpet padding, and industrial fibers. It targets companies with field workers (delivery drivers, utility workers, home healthcare providers, field sales teams) that need to retire branded workwear due to gear updates, rebranding, or environmental compliance.

Quantifiable outcome

• 3,345,716 items diverted from landfills since 2019
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Stonewerx PromotionalcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 March 2025Partnership with Stonewerx Promotional to launch a vest trade-in and recycling program for safety vests. Stonewerx works with a major tech company client to manage used workwear through SwagCycle's recycling network, transforming vests into insulation, carpet padding, and industrial fibers.
• Delivering GoodcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025Partnership with Delivering Good for California wildfire relief in 2025, coordinating nearly $500,000 in donations from promotional products industry partners including distributors and suppliers.
• Provision MinistrycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLong-standing partnership with Provision Ministry, a Worcester, Massachusetts-based organization that directs merchandise to veterans, homeless individuals, and families in need. Partnered on major S&S Activewear donation project.
• United WayminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCharitable partner receiving donated merchandise for distribution to communities in need.
• Dress for Success BostonminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCharitable partner supporting women in the Boston area through professional attire and development resources.
• Baby2BabyminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerNational nonprofit that has distributed over 450 million essential items to children living in poverty. Received 2,400 upcycled baby blankets through BAMKO partnership.
• Materials for the ArtsminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerNew York-based nonprofit partner added to SwagCycle's charitable network in 2025, expanding the roster of nonprofit partners to hundreds.
• Giving World (UK)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUK nonprofit that supplies essential items to vulnerable communities. Received donations from Meta/Facebook rebrand stored in UK warehouses, supporting Ukrainian refugees.
• Kotis DesignminorGTM or Marketing PartnerCounselor Top 40 distributor that participated in California wildfire relief donations coordinated by SwagCycle and Delivering Good.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Patagonia Worn Wear: Patagonia's Worn Wear program handles trade-in, repair, and resale/recycling of branded apparel, overlapping with SwagCycle's upcycling and apparel recycling services, though serving one brand's customers rather than multi-enterprise clients.
• Optoro: Optoro provides enterprise reverse logistics software and disposition services for returned and excess retail inventory. Comparable in operating at the intersection of enterprise returns/excess and resale/donation channels.

Direct peers

• TerraCycle: TerraCycle operates branded recycling programs (e.g., Loop, free recycling programs for branded waste streams) that compete in the corporate hard-to-recycle materials space. Comparable because both serve enterprise ESG goals and run partner-driven recycling networks at national scale.
• Delivering Good: Delivering Good is a nonprofit that redistributes excess promotional products and corporate donations to people in need—an existing SwagCycle partner and the most direct comparable in the promotional-products donation niche.
• Green Standards: Green Standards provides corporate surplus, furniture, and asset liquidation for companies undergoing rebranding, relocation, or downsizing—directly comparable to SwagCycle's branded merchandise disposal use case and the same enterprise rebrand-triggered demand.
• Good360: Good360 matches corporate product donations with nonprofit demand at scale, operating a network of vetted charity partners analogous to SwagCycle's charitable network. Same donation-corporation-to-charity intermediation model with similar impact-tracking reporting.
• I:CO (I:Collect) / SOEX: I:CO/SOEX runs one of the world's largest textile collection and sorting networks for reuse and recycling, including fiber-to-fiber processing. Highly comparable to SwagCycle's textile recycling and NIR-based material processing capabilities for branded apparel.

Emerging players

• B-Stock Solutions: B-Stock operates B2B liquidation marketplaces for returned, overstock, and end-of-life retail and branded inventory. Comparable as a technology-enabled platform for moving excess branded merchandise to secondary markets, though not charity-focused.
• ReCircled: ReCircled provides certified circular material processing for fashion and apparel brands, including fiber-to-fiber recycling and material sorting. Comparable in advanced textile recycling capabilities and brand-partner model.
• Trove (now B-Collective): Trove/B-Collective builds branded resale and trade-in platforms for apparel brands and retailers, comparable in addressing end-of-life branded apparel through circular-economy infrastructure and ESG reporting.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/swagcycleteam

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about swagcycle