Seattle-based sustainable paper products company Cloud Paper has raised $5 million.
The funding round, which was announced Thursday, counts Bezos Expeditions, Marc Benioff's Time Ventures, Presight Capital, Ashton Kutcher's Soundwaves and former Amazon executive Jeff Wilke as investors. Cloud Paper said the company will use the money for hiring, product development and improving its supply chain.
“Over this past year, we’ve seen and heard how much the environment means to our customers, and saving it through a small paper product switch is an easy way to make sustainability feel attainable for everyone,” Ryan Fritsch, co-founder of Cloud Paper, said in a news release.
Cloud Paper already had an impressive list of celebrity investors before the $5 million round, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Ciara, Russell Wilson, Mark Cuban and Robert Downey Jr.'s Footprint Coalition Fund.
Cloud Paper was founded in 2019 by Fritsch and Austin Watkins, both of whom came from the Seattle-based freight network startup Convoy. Cloud Paper makes tree-free toilet paper and paper towels, using bamboo instead. According to Cloud Paper, 20% of global deforestation comes from paper towels and toilet paper. The company sells directly to consumers as well as to businesses.
Since Cloud Paper's $3 million seed round in September 2020, the company says it saw an 800% increase in revenue and delivered 930% more rolls. The company added that its products saved more than 10,000 trees last year.
“Cloud Paper is on a mission to transform the paper products industry to switch to tree-free products,” Kutcher said in a news release. “We want to be part of that mission and further cement our position in this space as Cloud Paper expands into retail and pursues an aggressive B2B strategy, alongside growing their DTC (direct-to-consumer) offering.”
