Sustainable thermal packaging boost: Temperpack secures US$22.5m in financing

14 Jan 2019 --- Temperpack, a company positioned to “solve thermal packaging problems through sustainable design,” has raised US$22.5 million in Series B financing led by Revolution Growth. New investors Harbert Growth Partners, Arborview Capital and Tao Capital Partners, and existing investor SJF Ventures, also participated in the round. The cash injection is hoped to expand the business and to engineer new products in response to increasing demand for sustainable thermal packaging.

TemperPack engineers, manufactures and distributes sustainable packaging products made from proprietary bio-based materials that replace single-use plastics such as Styrofoam. Founded in 2015 by James McGoff, Brian Powers and Charles Vincent, TemperPack has grown rapidly in pursuit of its “mission” to reduce the amount of unsustainable packaging driven by the rise of e-commerce food and life science cold chain logistics.

“The era of toxic packaging is over and we believe TemperPack will lead in the elimination of Styrofoam, which is increasingly under regulatory and consumer scrutiny due to its negative impact on the environment,” says Todd Klein, Partner at Revolution Growth. “As corporations respond to escalating consumer pressure for more environmentally friendly packaging, we expect the demand for TemperPack's products to accelerate quickly.”

TemperPack’s curbside recyclable products take a design-forward approach and reduce packaging in landfills

“Packaging is a bit like electricity; the average person doesn't always think about it, but it's moving and working all around us non-stop. At any given moment there are millions of products in transit packaged in single-use plastic. With the rise of e-commerce, we're focused on making packaging that is designed as thoughtfully as the products it protects,” says James McGoff, Cofounder and Co-CEO of TemperPack.

TemperPack designs and tests products in its Proving Ground laboratory to meet precise client specifications in fields ranging from fresh food delivery to the shipment of biological drugs. TemperPack's patent-pending ClimaCell technology is the first truly functional, sustainable alternative to plastic foams such as Styrofoam. ClimaCell is How2Recycle certified and curbside recyclable, and it insulates as well as expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) and far better than other sustainable alternatives.

“Plastic foam can take more than 500 years to degrade. It's an antiquated technology that damages brands as much as it damages the environment. Consumers, governments and logistics companies are all desperate for a truly functional, authentically sustainable alternative. ClimaCell finally fills that void,” says Brian Powers, Cofounder and Co-CEO of TemperPack.

Today, TemperPack operates two factories in the US states of Virginia and Nevada. It is rapidly expanding its reach in the food and life science cold chain logistics markets, all with the goal of reducing the amount of packaging that ends up in landfills. The company estimates that it has avoided 15 million pounds of carbon emissions and diverted 10 million pounds of plastic foam from landfills. Manufacturing ClimaCell is estimated to reduce carbon emissions by 97 percent compared to manufacturing comparable plastic foam.

With the new financing, Todd Klein, Partner at Revolution Growth, and Brian Carney, General Partner at Harbert Growth Partners, will join the board.

In November 2018, Diplomat Pharmacy, an independent provider of specialty pharmacy services in the US, committed to moving its cold chain shipments away from EPS foam by utilizing TemperPack's ClimaCell insulating technology.

Earlier in the year, HelloFresh, the largest meal-kit company in the US, partnered with Temperpack to replace their box liners with ClimaCell. The new liners perform as well as EPS foam (Styrofoam) on an inch-per-inch comparison but offer consumers the opportunity to dispose of them in curbside recycling bins alongside the corrugated box the package comes in.