Written by Harvard Business School Senior Associate Dean, William Sahlman and Senior Harvard Researcher, Hunter Ashmore, the case describes Rubicon’s disruption of the waste and recycling industry. The case is set in late 2014 and discusses Rubicon’s expansion and growth capital options.
“The company started with a bold idea: create a cloud-based, full-service waste management company providing low-cost, highly efficient, and environmentally friendly service anywhere in the country through a national network of independent waste haulers and recyclers.” A player in the sharing economy, Rubicon was developing an on-demand mobile application that did for waste management what Uber had done for taxi service.
Rubicon had made great progress since introducing its service. They had signed up large multi-national customers and had a number of large potential contracts in the negotiation phase. The team needed more capital to build out the network and technology platform. Management and the board had to make a number of critical decisions: how much should the company raise, for what purpose, from whom, and on what terms?”
The Harvard Business case study is available for purchase through Harvard Publishing.
