A former 43North winner has closed on a significant funding round to fuel its expansion in Buffalo.
CleanFiber, which makes high-performance building insulation, came to Buffalo in 2017 and now operates a 60,000-square-foot factory in Lackawanna.
About 45 people work at the site. That number is expected to grow following an $11.9 million funding round the company closed recently to expand production here and to “lay the groundwork” for additional facilities.
CleanFiber is led by founder and CEO Jonathan Strimling.
The round included a $4 million investment from Aligned Climate Capital and a contribution from Jeff Wilke, the former second-in-command at Amazon. Local investors included the NOCO Energy, 43North (which made a $300,000 investment this spring) and the Western New York Impact Investment Fund, which invested $500,000.
“Ramping up production of a new technology is not easy, but we have been impressed with CleanFiber’s strong sales traction and production successes even in the face of Covid-19,” said Thomas Quinn, WNY Impact Investment Fund CEO.
CleanFiber has now raised $39 million in private capital to fuel its expansion. The company said it has a multi-million backlog of demand and expects to ultimately produce about three million bags of insulation each year.
CleanFiber is the 21st local company to acknowledge growth-oriented financing this year. The others: Jerry ($103 million), Squire ($60 million), Tackle.io ($35 million), Torch Labs ($25 million), Circuit Clinical ($7.5 million), SomaDetect ($6 million), Kickfurther ($5.9 million), HELIXintel ($1.6 million), Joblio ($4 million), Ognomy ($1.37 million), Patient Pattern ($1.2 million), Ellicottville Greens ($1 million), Immersed Games ($540,000), Braid Babes ($415,000), MemoryFox ($380,000), Zizo Technologies ($200,000), Thimble.io ($125,000), AirExpert ($100,000), HiOperator (undisclosed) and Classavo (undisclosed),
