Sort A Brick Turns Used LEGO Into Refurbished Sets at Scale

Early demand

More than 75 per cent of the online store's listed inventory sold in its first week, and customers in 20 EU countries have bought over 1,100 sets. The company has also received nearly 2,000 restoration requests from 41 countries and processed more than 700 kilograms of mixed bricks, with Germany emerging as a key market.

CEO Ilya Malkin says the average restoration order is around €500, often for 14 or 15 kilograms of bricks, which is a barrier for some customers. Individual refurbished sets cost around €10 or €15 depending on the model. The company targets prices about half those of equivalent new sets, though older and rarer sets may cost more.

How the machine works

The system uses computer vision to identify bricks and match them against a database of sets, and software then determines which sets can be rebuilt. The new machine scans bricks from all sides and has ten times more output containers, so hundreds of sets can be processed at once. Overall capacity is up fivefold on roughly three times the footprint.

It automatically identifies more than 93 per cent of pieces. The remaining 7 per cent go to a semi-manual station, and a human checks every set for completeness before it ships. Sets are cleaned and made only of genuine LEGO bricks, and the company says it will replace any missing or non-genuine piece. A QR code gives access to building instructions.

Malkin says the key test is whether the business works at scale. He expects the new generation to make operations profitable, which would allow the company to start replicating the system.