Lithuanian startup Sort A Brick, a service for sorting customers’ old LEGO bricks into new sets, has secured an investment of €1.150.000. The financial support comes from the Baltic-focused VC fund Firstpick, nine business angels, and the founders’ initial investment of €200,000.

Sort A Brick offers a service that cleans, sorts, and repackages customers’ LEGO bricks into original or custom sets, giving a second life to already-owned toys. By spring 2025, the startup seeks to raise a new round of €2.500.000 with international VC funds. Their goal is to expand across Europe, starting with a limited launch in Germany this October.

“We help by cleaning and sorting customers’ brick collections, then using our proprietary software to suggest new models to build,” says Aurimas Slapšys, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sort A Brick.

Recirculation as a new business model

The idea for Sort A Brick was conceived by Co-Founder Ilya Malkin, who saw his own family’s use of LEGO items as wasteful. Most LEGO parts are made of difficult-to-recycle ABS plastic. While the manufacturer does not disclose official numbers, Malkin estimates that LEGO has produced 1.5 trillion of these bricks since its first series in 1958.

Encouraging the reuse of goods and extending product life is an emerging trend and growing business model, projected to make up 15% of the physical consumer goods market by 2030 with a revenue of €265 billion.

On his decision to invest in Sort A Brick, Mantas Mikuckas, Co-Founder of Vinted, says: “Circular businesses have huge potential because they address real problems while also cutting CO2 emissions.”

Reviving LEGO sets with AI recognition

At its heart, Sort A Brick is a tech startup. Its proprietary AI system analyzes bricks to determine what models can be built from the mix. The bricks are sorted accordingly, returning customers’ LEGO pieces repackaged by set and with online accessible instructions.

“The core technology is a computer vision algorithm that can recognize the different bricks and identify possible combinations. The sorting process will work like an automated assembly line, where machines clean, group, and sort the bricks new,” Malkin explains.

The startup is using the recent funding to build up its operations, investing in prototype machinery, advanced computer vision, software development, and market tests.

“We are currently preparing to raise additional funding to upgrade our technology to automatic operations, increase capacity, and improve product experience for our customers. This will allow us to make the service fully available not only in Germany, our first target market, but also to expand further,” Malkin adds.