Editor’s note: M&A activity in ITAD will be featured in sessions at the 2026 E-Scrap: The Longevity Conference Oct. 26-28 in New Orleans.
As we prepare to discuss M&A at the E-Scrap Conference on October 26, 2026 (#ESC2026), I thought it would be fitting to look back at some of this year’s deals and the investments behind them.
M&A activity has continued across IT asset disposition and electronics recycling. Refurbishment and materials recovery companies have also been active, with private equity firms and strategic buyers participating alongside companies from adjacent industries.
I thought it would be useful to look at what actually happened: who bought whom, what the buyers acquired, and what those transactions tell us about where money is moving in the hardware circularity sector.
M&A is reshaping the hardware circularity business
The composition of transactions across IT asset disposition, electronics recycling and refurbished hardware has shifted in 2026, and the deals are no longer confined to ITAD companies buying other ITAD companies.
Recent deals have combined enterprise ITAD with consumer resale. Others have connected corporate collection with pan-European refurbished-hardware distribution, or battery recycling with feedstock and logistics. Other buyers have used acquisitions to build networks spanning ITAD and electronics recycling, with critical-material recovery added to the mix.
The transactions provide a clearer picture of where investors are putting money across what might broadly be called the hardware circularity sector.
Full Circle moves from enterprise ITAD into Apple resale
Several deals closed this past summer. Illinois-based Full Circle Electronics closed its acquisition of Mac of All Trades, a Tampa, Florida-based seller of refurbished Apple products and provider of Apple device buyback services, in mid-August and announced the deal Aug. 25. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The businesses occupy different positions in the used-hardware market. Full Circle provides ITAD and electronics recycling, along with remarketing and lifecycle services. Mac of All Trades, founded in 1995, operates a consumer-facing platform selling refurbished Macs, iPads, iPhones and other Apple products.
The transaction gives an enterprise ITAD provider a direct connection to a mature retail market for refurbished equipment. It also adds something different from another ITAD processing location.
Full Circle described the combination as linking enterprise asset recovery and data security with Mac of All Trades’ Apple refurbishment and resale operation.
Flex IT and T1A create a €150 million European platform
A larger European transaction followed in September. On Sept. 7, Denmark-based T1A Group and Netherlands-based Flex IT completed a combination creating a circular-IT business with approximately €150 million ($169 million) in annual revenue.
The transaction was backed by Eurazeo’s Planetary Boundaries Fund, which acquired a majority interest in T1A in May. Danish Growth Capital participated as a minority investor. Altor Fund IV divested Flex IT to Eurazeo.
The businesses occupy different portions of the hardware lifecycle.
T1A collects corporate IT equipment at the end of its first use and performs data erasure and refurbishment, while Flex IT distributes new and refurbished hardware through a European network of approximately 13,000 resellers and has ITAD and refurbishment capacity in Leiden, the Netherlands, and Toruń, Poland. Flex IT had approximately €120 million ($135 million) in revenue in 2025.
The companies explicitly described themselves as operating at opposite ends of the same value chain. The combination links the supply of retired corporate equipment to refurbishment. It also provides a large existing distribution channel for selling that equipment back into the European market.
DMD buys Lifespan and says more acquisitions are coming
In June, DMD Systems Recovery acquired Lifespan International from Bluum Technology.
Lifespan, founded in 2002, brought more than two decades of ITAD experience along with enterprise customers. Its capabilities include recycling, data destruction, value recovery and remarketing.
The deal was another example of private-equity-backed consolidation. DMD is a portfolio company of Tailwind Capital, which acquired a majority stake in the company in 2025.
DMD CEO Aaron Zeper told Resource Recycling at the time that the Lifespan acquisition represented the first transaction under a broader acquisition strategy.
Unlike the Full Circle transaction, this was principally a consolidation within ITAD. DMD acquired more than processing capacity. Lifespan brought an established enterprise customer base and lifecycle-management operation.
Paladin spends $85 million building an international network
Few companies illustrate the speed of consolidation better than Paladin EnviroTech.
The company entered the market in 2025 through the acquisitions of Florida-based TechSmart International and Minnesota-based Integrated Recycling Technologies.
Those two transactions gave the newly created company nearly 100 employees and facilities in Florida and Minnesota. Paladin said the operations provided capacity for reuse and refurbishment of IT assets, as well as commodity recovery.
The company then moved into Europe. In January 2026, Paladin acquired Netherlands-based R&L Recycling, adding a 129,000-square-foot facility in Helmond.
In April, it acquired ICT, an Irish ITAD provider founded in 2003. ICT brought IT remarketing and electronics recycling. Its operations also include data-center decommissioning, secure logistics and certified data destruction.
Paladin said at the time that it had invested approximately $70 million across acquisitions during the preceding nine months.
The ICT transaction also came with plans to move into a newly leased 52,000-square-foot processing facility in Dublin.
By late June, Paladin said it had invested $85 million building its global network, with its expanding footprint approaching 600,000 square feet. It had also acquired a shredding and mechanical-processing facility near Phoenix. A 40,000-square-foot core processing center was added in Columbus, Ohio, while 15,000-square-foot regional collection hubs were added in Dallas and Lacey, Washington. A Laurel, Maryland, site had also been announced in February.
The company has been explicit about connecting ITAD and electronics recycling with recovery of critical materials.
Paladin’s approach differs from a traditional roll-up focused principally on accumulating ITAD revenue. Its acquisitions are assembling collection and secure disposition across multiple regions, with mechanical processing and materials recovery added to the operation.
Battery-recycling deals target feedstock, logistics and technology
The same pattern is appearing outside conventional ITAD. On Sept. 21, Electrified Materials Corporation (EMCO), a subsidiary of American Resources Corporation, signed a binding letter of intent to acquire 100% of Blackion LLC in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $13.2 million. The transaction remains subject to definitive agreements and approvals. Blackion manages used batteries and recovered materials, along with supply-chain logistics.
The battery-recycling business is moving to acquire capabilities involved in obtaining and moving the material it needs to process. The deal adds feedstock management and logistics. It does more than add recycling capacity.
Another September transaction involved Refinyx, a Stockholm-based recycling-technology company that emerged from stealth after acquiring Northvolt’s recycling patents and pilot facility. Refinyx licenses technology and provides engineering services to industrial operators building recovery plants. It also announced that it had secured its first major US customer.
The transaction moves technology developed within one of Europe’s highest-profile battery manufacturers into a new business seeking to commercialize that technology with industrial operators.
Materials companies are also moving toward discarded hardware
Investment is moving in the opposite direction as well. Companies whose traditional interest lies in metals and materials have invested closer to the sources of discarded electronics.
Sumitomo Corporation’s July 2026 investment in GreenTek Solutions is one example. In December 2025, Mitsubishi Materials announced it would acquire a 19% stake in Elemental USA E-Waste & ITAD, the holding company for Elemental Holding’s U.S. e-waste operations, with the possibility of increasing the stake to 49% subject to approvals. Korea Zinc’s U.S. recycling acquisitions since 2022 have also brought metals-sector capital closer to the collection and processing of electronics.
The strategic logic differs from that of an ITAD roll-up. For these companies, discarded electronics can represent access to copper and precious metals. Strategic materials such as rare earths are another consideration.
Cyclic Materials provides another example of this downstream pull. The company opened its Mesa, Arizona facility to separate rare earth magnet material from discarded electronics and industrial equipment, while also recovering copper, aluminum and steel. The operation gives recyclers an additional outlet for end-of-life products containing permanent magnets.
ERI, which announced a strategic partnership with Cyclic in July, joined Cyclic’s $75 million financing round as a strategic investor in August.
The transactions are crossing old industry boundaries
Taken individually, these deals look quite different. DMD bought another ITAD provider, while Full Circle bought a consumer refurbished-hardware business. T1A and Flex IT combined corporate collection with refurbishment and distribution. Paladin assembled ITAD and electronics recycling businesses across multiple countries, adding mechanical-processing operations as it expanded. Elsewhere, EMCO moved to acquire battery feedstock and logistics capabilities, while metals and critical-material companies invested closer to electronics collection and processing. The buyers are pursuing different strategies.
The acquisitions increasingly cross boundaries that traditionally separated ITAD and refurbishment. Resale, reverse logistics, recycling and material recovery are also part of these transactions.
Some buyers want enterprise customers. Others want geographic coverage and processing capacity. Other transactions provide resale channels, feedstock, technology or access to recovered materials. The industry is becoming more difficult to describe simply as ITAD consolidation.
The 2026 deal activity raises another question: which companies will control the most valuable portions of a piece of hardware’s path from corporate retirement through reuse and resale, and eventually to material recovery?
