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wbjournal.com | April 3, 2023 | Worcester Business Journal 17 example, which takes 95% less energy to recycle than it does to produce new aluminum, said Molstad. To help VALIS grow, Mostad has led or helped raise more than $5 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the U.S. De- partment of Energy. e VALIS team was named a finalist for e Climate Award for the 2022 MassChallenge Early-Stage cohort, which is a global accelerator program providing tools, resources, and talent for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. In mid-April, the VALIS team will host a panel at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Convention & Ex- position in Nashville, Tennessee, on the various ways technology can improve the scrap recycling industry. e panel at the expo, attended by more than 6,000 international industry professionals, is part of VALIS' effort to create a more circular economy, where materials are reused over and over again instead of being discarded aer one use. To further this goal, the company pairs its VALI-Sort soware with the VALI-Melt soware, which offers insight into the optimal conditions to melt any particular piece of recycled metal. e scrap recyclers can then pass this data onto the companies who will use the recycled aluminum. Metallurgists and melt technicians can increase the efficiency and profitability of their operations, and purchasing managers can stay up to date on material trends, track vendor quality, and make more informed purchasing decisions. Looking further down the road, the company is looking to pair these two soware tools under the VALI-Cy- cle system, which will track material through the value chain and adjust sorting and blending based on market trends. Molstad and her team are seek- ing grant funding to back the research and development of VALI-Cycle, with an estimated project launch in 2026. W M A N U F A C T U R I N G E X C E L L E N C E A W A R D S F O C U S THANK YOU... TALENT PIPELINE SUMMIT to everyone who attended the MassHire Central Manufacturing Talent Pipeline Summit. Especially to our speakers Representative Jeffery Roy, Chair of the Manufacturing Caucus and Christine Nolan, Director of the Center for Manufacturing at Mass Tech Collaborative. Green Manufacturing Award VA L I S Location: Worcester Industry subsector: Recycling Founded: Team formed in 2019; official founding in 2022 Employees: 3 Top executive: Emily Molstad, CEO and co-founder Primary product: VALI-Sort, the company's flagship software, integrates with scrap-sorting systems to provide visibility into product composition and identify value-creation opportunities. College floor-mates: The VALIS founding team all lived on the third floor of Daniels Hall during their respective freshman years at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. W The VALIS team (from left) Chief Technology Officer Caleb Ralphs, CEO and Co-founder Emily Molstad, and Solvus Global Chief Operations Officer Sean Kelly attended the 2022 Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. conference. PHOTOS | COURTESY OF VALIS