Novi Connect Raises $40M to Make Sustainability Accessible for Consumer Brands
The B2B marketplace for sustainable, innovative ingredients and packaging, Novi Connect raises $40M in new funding led by Tiger Global with follow-on investments from Defy.vc and Greylock. The new round comes just under six months after Novi announced its $10.3M raise and brings Novi’s total funding to over $51M.
Founded in 2020 by MIT graduate and Air Force veteran Kimberly Shenk, Novi has helped consumer brands bring thousands of products to market with more sustainable materials, both driving more revenue and positive impact for the planet.
Novi’s data-rich network of suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, and brands has seen rapid growth as brands look to easily formulate, discover, sample, and purchase sustainable and innovative ingredients, fragrances and packaging as they build new products.
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The startup boasts 9x growth in consumer brands in 2021, with users from Smashbox to Seventh Generation to Unilever— all looking to meet mounting demand from consumers to develop sustainable products.
This increasing demand from brands looking to discover and source trusted materials independently vetted by Novi against 100+ sustainability standards led to significant growth in supplier partners in 2021, including Dow, Croda, and APC Packaging.
“Pre-Novi, brands would spend weeks hunting down materials and interpreting disparate material documentation to determine if they met complex industry standards”, says Kimberly Shenk, CEO and founder. “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.”
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Further fueling brand growth, partnerships with retailers like Credo and Grove Collaborative brought indie-focused brands to Novi alongside early champions Sephora and Target. Keying in on Novi’s mission to make sustainability accessible to SMB consumer brands, indie brands, suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers have been the standout segments in Novi’s growth and engagement in-platform.
“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. “This type of platform delivers true transparency and is the future of the beauty industry. We are so excited to be part of this great journey.”
Novi plans to deploy its new capital to build additional technology for both sides of the marketplace to comply with evolving sustainability claims, grow its selection of ingredients, fragrances and packaging, as well as expand into new verticals like home care and food — segments that Novi is already seeing organic traction in.
“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.”
