James McGoff, the chief product officer and co-founder of TemperPack Inc., says the $140 million funding round his Richmond company secured in March will help it execute on an ambitious blueprint to build it into something that will last a long time and do a lot of good.
That plan includes what McGoff said will be a “very disruptive” new product from the 350-employee company, which makes sustainable materials to replace traditional plastic packaging — products it says reduce plastic waste and carbon emissions.
“This round is more about executing on our long-term strategy, stability and growth, while fortifying our position as the largest replacement of coolers in the country,” said McGoff. “We're going to invest into our production lines on our ClimaCell line. We're also going to invest into new solutions and new markets, including markets beyond just cold chain or shipping perishable things.”
McGoff declined to elaborate further on that forthcoming product line, but it has been in the works for more than a year. Its ClimaCell line is an insulation material that replaces Styrofoam coolers for use in shipping food and life sciences products. Clients include HelloFresh and UPS Healthcare. McGoff declined to disclose the company’s revenue.
The funding round, led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and involving other big names like Revolution and Tao Capital Partners, is the largest for a Richmond-area company in at least two years and it brings TemperPack’s lifetime funding to $250 million since its 2015 founding. When the funding was announced, TemperPack said it would be used to expand its capacity, grow its geographic footprint and extend its customer reach.
McGoff said the company engaged in months of conversations with Goldman Sachs to secure the backing — something he said was ultimately exciting, a relief and a big accomplishment that validated TemperPack in a major way.
Those discussions with Goldman Sachs’ $1.7 trillion asset management unit included TemperPack execs detailing how the company utilized previous investments, its trajectory and its challenges, McGoff said. The TemperPack team also swapped ideas with Goldman Sachs on how it could grow in new ways and what might be an avenue to new products and new markets.
The goal is to “co-create a future” with customers, where a client might suggest a product that doesn’t exist that would meet its needs, McGoff said. Then, TemperPack would head to the lab, do some prototyping and testing to ultimately identify a concept that it would then manufacture and deploy — all while balancing costs.
“The challenge is to stay laser focused on the fewest most important things that you think is going to drive the most impact,” said McGoff. “The first challenge is how do you use less? The best packaging is no packaging. But of course, you can't get down to zero. So [we ask], surrounding the materials we use, how can you make them from the most sustainable materials out there?”
The company has its headquarters as well as a manufacturing facility in Richmond, which includes an International Safe Transit Association-certified thermal transport lab. It also has a manufacturing facility in Las Vegas.
