Cold’s sustainability management software helps centralize and automate compliance for leading consumer brands.
(Minneapolis, MN, Oct. 31, 2024) — Cold, the sustainability management platform that leverages AI to streamline compliance for organizations of all sizes, today announced it has raised $2.65 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round. The round was led by York IE, with participation from Better Ventures and a group of retail industry leaders.
Successfully navigating compliance is quickly becoming a critical business need. Organizations are facing mounting sustainability reporting requirements across three categories of key stakeholders: enterprise customers, certification bodies, and regulatory agencies. Sustainability leaders currently spend as much as 40% of their time on compliance and reporting, which comes at a significant opportunity cost. Cold launched its platform in early 2024 to provide organizations with a more efficient alternative to manual reporting.
“Sustainability reporting takes precious time and resources away from the important work of reducing an organization’s environmental impact,” said Eric Dayton, founder and CEO at Cold. “Cold solves this problem by centralizing and automating compliance so that sustainability leaders can focus on the work that matters most.”
Prior to Cold, Dayton founded Askov Finlayson, a climate positive winter outerwear company and only the fourth in the outdoor apparel industry to achieve B Corp certification. Cold’s co-founder, Dan Lindquist, brings extensive experience creating innovative SaaS solutions as the co-founder and former Chief Product Officer at Mainstreet.
"In our conversations with companies and suppliers, we consistently heard about the mounting burden of compliance and reporting as they navigated new climate standards,” said Lyndsey Boucherle, Partner at Better Ventures. “What stood out to us about Cold was Eric's firsthand experience with this challenge from running his own brand, along with the team's laser focus on addressing this growing pain point.”
Leading brands in the apparel and outdoors industries — including Bombas, Topo Designs, Outdoor Research, Fair Harbor, and Peak Design — trust Cold to streamline compliance and automate their sustainability reporting. The platform helps organizations save valuable time, unlock new opportunities, and protect against risk.
“As the pile of reporting and compliance requirements grow, I have found myself spending more time filling out reports than doing the actual work of making Peak a more sustainable company,” said Annie Nyborg, Head of Environmental and Social Impact at Peak Design. “Cold allows me to focus on driving progress while they take care of the reporting.”
Cold is backed by a strong team of advisors and investors with deep retail industry backgrounds, including Doug Baker, former CEO of Ecolab and current Target board member, Michael Francis, Target’s former CMO, and Archie Black, who served as the longtime CEO at SPS Commerce.
The pre-seed funding will allow Cold to expand its engineering team and accelerate the development of new product features. To meet the evolving needs of its customers, Cold recently launched a new data management tool to support material, supplier, and product-level reporting. The tool streamlines compliance with regulations such as California's ban on PFAS chemicals in apparel, which goes into effect on January 1, the EU’s SDEX reporting tool, and key certifications such as Bluesign and the Global Recycled Standard.
According to KPMG, 47% of organizations are still relying on spreadsheets to manage their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data, and 90% of organizations plan to increase their ESG investment in the next three years. ESG-specific software is listed as a top area for future investment.
“Sustainability compliance is quickly becoming as critical as SOC 2 security certification for companies that want to do business with enterprise customers,” said Marshall Everson, VP, Investments & Strategy at York IE. “Cold’s sustainability management platform centralizes a wide range of compliance frameworks and uses AI to automate what was previously an onerous, manual process.”
Visit www.coldclimate.com to learn more and schedule a demo.
ABOUT COLD
Cold Climate PBC is a sustainability management platform that streamlines compliance for organizations of all sizes. Leading brands trust Cold to automate reporting so that they can focus on the work that matters. Visit www.coldclimate.com to learn more.
ABOUT YORK IE
York IE is an advisory and venture capital firm that helps technology companies grow. York IE leverages a 200+ person global operating team, data and automation technology, and deep ecosystem relationships to provide advisory as a service across product, go-to-market, and finance and to selectively invest in early-stage B2B SaaS startups. Founders, operators, and investors at all stages rely on York IE to help build, scale and monetize their business. Fuel® your strategic growth at York IE.
ABOUT BETTER VENTURES
Better Ventures backs founders leveraging science and technology to create a better economy, where people and the planet thrive. Since 2011, Better Ventures has supported over 150 mission-driven founders to fulfill their dual purposes of growth and impact at scale. The firm invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups with innovative solutions to build sustainable industries, improve human health, and equip tomorrow’s workforce. Learn more at better.vc.
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