The new business Novi Connect has a simple mission -- to help businesses build sustainable products and source compliant materials.
As consumers demand businesses take greater steps to ensure that their products are sustainable and move toward being fossil fuel free, this mission is only going to become more critical.
There are hundreds of businesses developing new materials and packaging to decarbonize materials (by removing their fossil fuel inputs), but companies need to be able to find them easily -- and that's been a challenge.
That's where Novi can help, according to a statement from chief executive officer and founder, Kimberly Shenk.
"Pre-Novi, brands would spend weeks hunting down materials and interpreting disparate material documentation to determine if they met complex industry standards", said Shenk. "Novi collects, digests, and digitizes all of this data, ensuring real-time accuracy against ever-changing standards and claims, which allow our users to make procurement decisions around sustainability more efficiently and with confidence."
The pitch was compelling enough to land $40 million in funding from investors including Tiger Global, Defy.vc and Greylock Partners.
Shenk, an MIT graduate and Air Force veteran, has seen her company sign up marquee brands including Sephora, Smashbox, Seventh Generation and Target since its launch just a few years ago.
Novi also recently a publicly-available ingredient screening tool so that any small business can check their products against standards like Certified Vegan, Clean at Sephora and EWG VERIFIED.
Big ingredient suppliers like Dow, Croda, and packaging companies including APC Packaging are opening up their product suite for Novi's marketplace -- and
"Novi has become the clear front-runner in terms of innovative sourcing platforms. Every week we are getting new Indie leads from Novi for customers who want to formulate with our sustainable ingredients'' said Donna Petretti, Head of North American Marketing at Croda, the UK-based chemicals and ingredients company.
Novi currently focuses on ingredients, fragrances, and packaging, but is looking to expand into cataloging offerings for home car products and food.
It's why the company raised that $40 million from investors including Tiger Global.
"Consumer demand continues to grow for greater transparency in the sustainability and health impacts of everyday products," said Griffin Schroeder, Partner, Tiger Global. "Novi has built a unique data-driven sourcing platform for brands, suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers to easily identify sustainable ingredients in their products and packaging."