Queen of Raw, Inc., a New York-based climate fintech company specializing in recouping value from excess inventory, has raised funding from Future Planet Capital (“FPC”), the international venture capital and impact investor with ~$400M of committed capital and a portfolio including 23andMe, Vaccitech, and Tokamak.

$288B of excess inventory annually becomes waste in landfills, burned, or laid to rest in warehouses. Queen of Raw turns it into a revenue source through sustainable solutions. Its flagship SaaS software, Materia MX, was released out of stealth over a year ago in response to growing supply chain inefficiencies, rising prices, and excess inventory that were escalated amidst the pandemic. These market forces are depleting company profits.

Companies using Materia MX can digitally manage, resell, and recycle excess inventory from a centralized location, with end-to-end automation and reporting in the cloud. Business losses are recouped and capital is preserved to be deployed during periods of recession. No CapEx required.

For its customers, including some of the world’s biggest Fortune 500 companies, the amount of wasted materials represents up to 15% or more of their bottom line. “At that volume,” says Stephanie Benedetto, the female founder and CEO of Queen of Raw, “waste isn’t just environmentally irresponsible–it’s a financial risk and a CFO issue.” An example of the impact: In just weeks leveraging the software, one client realized savings on $14M worth of inventory and holding costs, generating revenue from recycling 10 metric tons of excess materials in Asia and diverting 95% from landfills and incineration.

Read More…

Disruptive crackers. It might not sound like the next revolution in industry but, in fact, it could be. Aiming to be the world’s first carbon negative food company, Bright Future LLC is on a mission to reverse climate change through nutrients. Financed by Post—the business behind Raisin Bran and Chips Ahoy! cookies, among many other products—it’s been given the freedom to operate with the agility and ingenuity of a disrupter. Airly, as its new brand is called, produces a snack described as “oat clouds” in flavors ranging from cheddar cheese to salted caramel.

And yet: How can Bright Future Foods be certain its products are helping in the fight against climate change and, if they are, how much? Can they be guaranteed down to the last gram of carbon? Enter Specright, one of the startups that went through SAP’s SAP.iO Foundries, a no equity ask global accelerator program. Created by 25 year packaging industry veteran Matthew Wright, Specright provides digitized exact and reliable data on the thousands of specifications that go into even simple-seeming products. Think about all the elements that have to be considered. Everything from a red lipstick’s gold label to its teeny-tiny measurements to its printed foil packaging materials must be accounted for. The same would go for, say, a tractor, down to the last screw. Yet, prior to Specright, such details for products were generally handled with little common language, and circulated within companies using primitive methods like email and spreadsheets, if they were managed at all.

Wright calls this new category of software “Specification Management” and Specrright’s software solution is the first patented, cloud-based Specification Management Platform. Clients ranging from Jack in the Box to Johnson & Johnson to Colgate extol its clean look and ease of use. Wright cites Steve Jobs as his inspiration. “I remember the days when you bought a computer and it was a day project to try to get something operating. Even then you had to read a book to use it. All of a sudden these Apple computers came out, and you took it out of the box and were doing stuff in ten minutes…I’m trying to do the same thing with industrial software.”

SAP.iO, which operates 11 global “foundries” for startups (though the pandemic has led some to operate virtually), is highly selective. Out of a field of company candidates that typically can reach as many as 700, just six to eight startups are chosen per “cohort,” or individual group. SAP works with the companies for three months around a theme; Specright’s group was focused on consumer and retail sustainability solutions. Upon graduation, the companies are integrated into SAP’s cloud software offerings as vetted and safe tools.

Read More…