Cruz Foam Secures $18 Million Series A

<p><strong>SANTA CRUZ<&sol;strong> &&num;8212&semi; Cruz Foam&comma; a circular materials company providing bio-based&comma; regenerative replacements for single-use plastic in the multi-billion dollar packaging industry&comma; today announced an &dollar;18M Series A funding round led by the problem-solving group&comma; Helena&period; The round was joined by One Small Planet&comma; Regeneration&period;VC&comma; At One Ventures&comma; and SoundWaves&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Cruz Foam is scaling the production of circular materials with existing industries catalyzing the transition of global supply chains away from harmful single-use materials for protective packaging and other uses&period; The first line of products targets plastic foam&period; The company was founded in 2017 by John Felts&comma; CEO&comma; and Marco Rolandi&comma; Chief Science Officer&comma; with a mission to replace single-use&comma; petroleum-based plastics starting with replacements for EPS and EPE and moving into new spaces such as cold chain and primary packaging for consumer packaged goods&period; The sustainable packaging market is expected to grow to &dollar;358B by 2028&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The sense of urgency for companies to transition to more sustainable materials has been escalated by government legislation&comma; as well as calls from NGOs and consumers for near-term solutions&period; Cruz Foam is a proactive solution that answers that call and accelerates the pace of change by preventing new plastic from entering the waste stream by design&period; Derived from all naturally occurring food waste materials&comma; Cruz Foam was developed to provide protection and performance but without adverse environmental impacts&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Matthew Saunders from Helena&comma; Will Peterffy from One Small Planet&comma; and an Independent Director will join existing Cruz Foam board members CEO &&num;038&semi; Cofounder&comma; John Felts&comma; and Executive Chairman &&num;038&semi; COO&comma; Toby Corey&period; The company has also recently added to the management team bringing on Ted Witt as VP of Commercial Operations and Carlo Woods as SVP of Finance&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The company also announced its conversion to a Benefit Corporation&comma; formalizing its longstanding commitment to creating a more sustainable planet&period; Cruz Foam will report annually on its progress in achieving its public benefit&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Cruz Foam&&num;8217&semi;s Series A will allow us to accelerate and scale the commercialization of our circular materials to respond to the urgent market demand&comma;&&num;8221&semi; says Felts&period; &&num;8220&semi;Helena is highly aligned with our mission and values&period; We are excited to collaborate with their team and our other partners to deliver proactive solutions to address the preventable environmental crisis of plastic pollution&period; Further&comma; our conversion to a Benefit Corporation underscores our core values and commitment to this mission&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;