LiquiDonate is a logistics technology platform that helps retailers and brands divert unsellable returns and excess inventory from landfills by automatically matching and rerouting them to local nonprofits and schools. Pulse 2.0 interviewed LiquiDonate founder and CEO Disney Petit to learn more.
Disney Petit’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Petit said:
I’ve spent my career building technology at the edges of operations and social impact—specifically where systems fail and waste becomes invisible. I’m the founder and CEO of LiquiDonate, where we build enterprise software that helps retailers turn excess inventory and unsellable returns into value by donating them instead of sending them to landfills.
Before LiquiDonate, I was employee #15 at Postmates, where I built the customer service organization and founded Civic Labs, the company’s internal social impact team. In 2021, I was part of the team behind Bento, a product that allowed people without smartphones to text “hungry” and receive a free meal from a nearby restaurant. Bento was named a TIME Best Invention of the Year. In 2025, LiquiDonate received the same recognition.
What’s driven me throughout my career is a belief that impact only scales when it’s embedded into how businesses actually operate.
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Petit shared:
Over time, I started to see waste not as a charity problem, but as a matching problem. When I was building FoodFight! at Postmates, a food recovery platform, I saw how logistics and software could connect surplus with need at scale. Once you see it that way, you can’t unsee it.
As food recovery gained traction and companies like Replate proved that matching models could work operationally, it became clear there was a much larger, largely unsolved problem sitting right next to it: retail goods. Perfectly usable clothing, shoes, and home items were being destroyed simply because there was no efficient system to move them elsewhere.
Then stories began surfacing about unsold clothing piling up in places like the Atacama Desert in Chile)—literal mountains of discarded fashion visible from space. This wasn’t a one-off failure. It was a systems failure.
When the pandemic hit, the contrast became even sharper. Community need surged, while retail waste continued to grow. LiquiDonate was created to address that gap by building infrastructure that could actually move goods where they’re needed, automatically and at scale, instead of defaulting to the landfill.
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Petit reflected:
Watching ReturnsDirect go live and work in a fully automated way for the first time. Seeing unsellable returns automatically routed from a customer’s home to a local nonprofit—without touching a warehouse—was the moment it clicked. We weren’t just donating goods. We were rewriting how returns work.
That was the shift from “nice idea” to real infrastructure.
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Petit explained:
LiquiDonate’s platform is built around two core products: ReturnsDirect and WarehouseDirect, both designed to replace landfill with smarter, automated dispositions.
ReturnsDirect integrates directly with a retailer’s returns management system to intercept unsellable returns before they ever reach a warehouse. Instead of paying for long-haul reverse logistics and additional handling, items are routed directly from the customer’s home to a local nonprofit. This reduces logistics costs by up to 60 percent while providing full tracking, audit-ready documentation, and sustainability reporting.
WarehouseDirect focuses on excess, aged, or unsellable inventory already sitting in distribution centers. It enables retailers to identify eligible SKUs in bulk, match them with verified nonprofits or schools, and move product out efficiently without manual coordination or one-off donation programs.
Together, ReturnsDirect and WarehouseDirect give retailers end-to-end coverage across both returns and inventory, turning donation into a repeatable, scalable part of the supply chain rather than a last-minute workaround.
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Petit acknowledged:
Tariff volatility made many retailers hesitant—and in some cases unable—to make changes to their supply chains. When costs are unpredictable, even necessary innovation gets put on pause.
We responded by sharpening our focus on what LiquiDonate delivers regardless of market conditions: immediate logistics savings, reduced handling, and greater operational control. We tightened our value proposition and built clear, data-backed case studies that showed where the platform worked best. That made it easy for retailers to understand the fit and move quickly when the timing was right.
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Petit noted:
We started by moving bulky inventory like furniture out of warehouses and into communities that needed it. While that was important and needed, we also learned that a big part of the problem was returns. Despite common assumptions, up to 80 percent of unsellable returns never make it back to shelves.
In 2025, we launched ReturnsDirect, the first RMS-integrated solution to automate donation for unsellable returns. It routes items directly from a customer’s home to a local nonprofit, cutting reverse logistics costs to retailers by up to 60 percent.
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Petit cited:
We’ve reached several meaningful milestones as we’ve grown. To date, we’ve facilitated the donation of more than 16 million items, diverting millions of pounds of waste from landfills, and built a network of 4,700+ registered 501(c)(3) organizations and schools. We’ve also been honored with industry recognition, including being named to TIME’s 2025 Best Inventions list, winning the 2026 NRF VIP Award for Supply Chain Innovation, earning a 2024 Fast Company World Changing Idea distinction, appearing on The Leading 100 List for two consecutive years, and receiving the 2024 International Green Apple Environment Award.
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Petit highlighted:
Luxome is a great example of how donation can become a default, not an exception. Luxome made the decision to donate 100% of its unsellable open returns through LiquiDonate rather than sending them back through traditional reverse logistics or to landfill.
Using ReturnsDirect, Luxome routes eligible returns directly from customers to local nonprofits, eliminating unnecessary shipping, handling, and disposal costs. This approach reduces logistics spend, speeds up resolution for customers, and ensures usable goods stay in the communities where they’re returned.
What’s notable isn’t just the volume—it’s the commitment. By making donation the standard disposition for open returns, Luxome turned what was once a cost center into a repeatable, values-aligned operational decision without adding complexity to their team. My favorite moment was when their CEO, Hyaat, told me, “In just one month alone, we’re saving over 100,000 miles of shipping.”
Funding/Revenue
Are you able to discuss funding and/or revenue metrics? Petit revealed:
We have raised $7.25 million in venture capital.
As of 2026, we are proud to say that we have donated over 16 million items with an FMV of over $150 million dollars to members of our nonprofit network of over 4,700 organizations.
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Petit affirmed:
“We are the very first company to ever automate donations of retail returns and excess inventory. It just has not been done before. There are piece-meal solutions that work for certain organizations, but no one has ever built software that can automatically route selected SKUs to non-profits. We call it Donation-as-a-Service, or DaaS. We plan to make this a mainstream term for the entire retail industry as it becomes more circular.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Petit emphasized:
Our long-term goal is a fully circular retail economy. Donation is the starting point. We’re expanding into recycling and keeping an eye on that exciting space. Refurbishment, upcycling, and electronics processing is also on the roadmap so landfill becomes the absolute last resort.
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Petit concluded:
One thing I care deeply about is moving the conversation away from shaming retailers. The retail industry is a massive, complex machine, and most of the waste we see is the result of outdated systems—not bad intent.
Real change doesn’t happen by calling companies out. It happens by giving them tools that fit into how they already operate and help move the system in a better direction. LiquiDonate is an invitation, not a judgment. If we want a more circular retail economy, we have to build infrastructure that makes the right choice the easiest one.
