ReCellular is continuing its meteoric rise, err… growth, especially now that it has $15 million in venture capital to fuel it.

The Dexter-based company is the world’s leading cell-phone recycling firm. Its revenues have increased an average of 25 percent each year since its founding and that has fueled plans to expand its operations in the Ann Arbor area, opening new office facilities, consolidating processing facilities and significantly increasing the number of Michigan employees. It has gone from 170 employees last year to 500 today and expects to create 50-60 jobs in 2008.

The company can be compared to the General Motors of old, controlling more than 50 percent of its industry's market share. Recellular expects to process 6 million old cell phones this year.

"We processed almost 5,000 phones in our first year of business," says ReCellular CEO Chuck Newman. "Today, we get an average of 24,000 phones – enough to fill seven mail trucks – every day, five days a week."

ReCellular started out as a cell phone rental company in the early 1990s, but switched to recycling when the phones became a disposable commodity. Tens upon tens of millions of cell phones are retired each year and countless more are sitting abandoned in desk drawers and glove boxes. ReCellular refurbishes and resells the ones that aren't too far gone or obsolete. The rest are ground up and recycled.

Investor Growth Capital is investing $15 million to bring a clean-tech company into its portfolio. Investment in clean-tech operations has skyrocketed over the past 5 years, going from $235 million in 2003 to $2.6 billion in 2008, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

Source: Monte Doran, spokesman for ReCellular
Writer: Jon Zemke