The Coca-Cola Co. and eight of its bottling partners have raised $137.7 million for a sustainability-focused venture capital fund.
Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) says it wants to reduce its carbon footprint through key investments in packaging, heating and cooling, distribution and supply chain.
“This fund offers an opportunity to pioneer innovative solutions and help scale them quickly within the Coca-Cola system and across the industry,” said John Murphy, president and chief financial officer. “We expect to benefit from getting access to emerging technology and science for sustainability and carbon reduction.”
New York venture capital firm Greycroft will manage the fund.
More corporations are investing in startups since the national slowdown of traditional venture capital funding. Last year, 26.2% of all U.S. venture funding rounds included an investment from a corporate venture capital investor. That's the highest such percentage ever recorded, according to venture capital data firm Pitchbook.
The number of companies, and their in-house VC firms, that led venture capital deals also hit a high. There were 634 corporate VC-led rounds last year totaling $22.4 billion in value. Another Atlanta giant, Cox Enterprises, also launched its own venture fund last month.
Coca-Cola has a number of sustainability goals, including to have at least 50% recycled content in its packaging by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Coca-Cola has remained the top plastic polluter in the world for five years, according to a 2022 analysis from Break Free From Plastic, which does an annual audit on corporations.
“This is not something that can be solved by any one organization on their own,” Kurt Ritter, vice president and general manager of sustainability North America for Coca-Cola, said at the Future of Sustainability event on July 12. The conference was hosted by the Georgia Chamber and held at the Coca-Cola headquarters.
“The goals and ambitions we have, we need a whole host of partnerships to get toward those goals," Ritter said. "We cannot do that just as a standalone company.”
