Zero Co to Shut Down Operations After Six Years in Business

Zero Co will cease trading on April 30, 2025, even though it remains solvent, after founder Mike SmithDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → said the business could not find a pathway to profitability. The company plans to hold a final sale of its products at a 50 percent discount until that date, then return any remaining capital to shareholders and wind down operations in an orderly fashion.

The startup began in Byron Bay in 2019 with a circular model: customers bought cleaning and shower products in single-use sachets and mailed back the empty pouches for reuse. Early customer interest was strong, with a Kickstarter campaign raising $740,000 in pre-orders that same year.

In 2021, Zero Co set an Australian equity-crowdfunding record by raising $5 million on Birchal in just six hours, and secured an additional $6 million in Series A funding from Square Peg, by which time it had already reached about $1 million in monthly sales and won a Smart50 Rising Star award.

In late 2024, the company replaced its original recyclable-plastics model with “ForeverFill” recycled-plastic dispensers and paper refill packs after finding only 42 percent of customers returned sachets. Retooling the supply chain led to production delays and broken seals on some laundry and dish liquid products, requiring refunds and six months of remediation efforts.

For the year to June 2024, Zero Co recorded revenue of $10.79 million and cut its pre-tax operating loss to $336,000, down from larger losses in prior years. Over its six-year life it served more than 100,000 Australian households with products using 97 percent less plastic, and its 1 percent-for-the-planet pledge funded the removal of waste equal to 45 million water bottles from rivers and oceans.

Source: Startup Daily.

T.R.