Tag Archive for: Portfolio

Impacks

Traction Capital has invested $500,000 in a St. Cloud based startup making school supplies more convenient and accessible. Impacks provides families with pre-packed school supply kits, tailored specifically to their school and grade. The Minneapolis venture capital firm looks forward to helping Impacks expand their customer base and give back to their community.

Impacks is a tech powered company that simplifies the way parents and educators access critical school supplies for students. Their platform customizes the back-to-school experience for parents, educators and administration through teacher approved school supply kits and bulk supply purchases for schools. Striving to create a world where all students can flourish, Impacks allows schools to fundraise and matches a percentage of each donation.

“Brandon and I, along with our Impacks team, are thrilled to join the Traction Capital portfolio. We believe Traction Capital offers a unique perspective and value through the depth of experience represented across their team and investors. We’ve already seen the impact of their process from just one strategy session with the Traction Capital team. We believe in the system, and we’re proud to align with an organization that leverages tools they use to elevate startups in MN and beyond. One thing that stood out to me in our early conversations with Traction Capital team is the blend of practicality, strategy, and ambition this organization applies to mentoring their portfolio of companies. We have a big goals for Impacks over the next few years, and we’re grateful to have Traction Capital’s support in those goals” says Clare Richards, CEO of Impacks.

Impacks has partnerships with over 50 schools across MN and Wisconsin, has sold over 6,000 school supply kits, and has generated over $18,000 in donations for partner schools.

The founders Clare and Brandon Richards were inspired to solve the issues facing parents and schools after volunteering at a school supply event in their community. Truly a dynamic duo, Clare has over 8 years of experience in marketing strategy and brand building, and Brandon has over 8 years of experience in the school supply industry and sales. Since founding Impacks, the team has participated in multiple accelerators including gBETA, BETA and ILT Academy. After seeing high growth in their company over the last 3 years, Clare and Brandon are excited to take their platform even further with the help of Traction Capital.

As Impacks begins putting their investment to use, they plan to expand their team, grow their facilities, and further develop their platform.

Traction and Impacks are eager to continue working together as Impacks prepares for further expansion. With strong growth and an impressive team, Traction looks forward to helping Impacks succeed. “Clare and Brandon are quite impressive and a pleasure to work with. They’re thoughtful and on top of things. Always prepared when we meet and well thought out. Impacks will fix a problem that has not yet been addressed that will resolve a major piece of the back-to-school headaches parents struggle with. We’re excited to be a part of what they’re doing”, says Brian Cox, President and Integrator of Traction Capital.

Clean Waste Systems

Clean Waste Systems (“CWS”) has received a $500,000 investment from Traction Capital. The Maple Lake, MN based company manufactures and sells equipment utilizing its own proprietary, patented ozone technology for sterilizing infectious medical waste. The process uses significantly less energy and water to operate and produces a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions as traditional technologies currently in use today. Traction Capital looks forward to working with the company as they continue to grow.

Clean Waste Systems has been in business since 2011. The company is registered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its technology is approved in 30 states and has been licensed and is in use abroad. The company’s customers consist primarily of large hospitals and third-party medical waste processors.

Due to COVID, surgeries and other medical procedures that produce infectious medical waste were significantly curtailed the past few years, which, in turn, reduced hospital revenues and profits, which, in turn, reduced hospital budgets for any type of capital equipment acquisitions. “It’s been a rough couple of years,” said Peter Jude, one of the company’s founders, “but COVID appears to be largely behind us now and some of the sales that we were working on prior to 2020 seem to be getting back on track. Traction Capital had the foresight to see what we saw going forward and we’re really excited to have them on board with us.”

“Prior to their investment in our company, Traction Capital introduced us to EOS (The Entrepreneurial Operating System), and we’ve been using it since October of last year”, said Steve Pellegrene, also a founder of Clean Waste Systems. “We love the discipline and accountability that EOS has brought to us. It forces us to keep our eye on the ball and make sure that we have the right people in the right seats doing what is necessary to be successful. It’s a new day around here and we could not be more excited about our future.”

“We’re excited too.” said Shane Erickson, CEO and Managing Partner at Traction Capital. “We think CWS is going to be a big winner for us and for our investors. The ability to substantially reduce a hospital’s carbon footprint, along with ongoing operating expenses is huge. We believe the future is very bright for CWS and we’re delighted to be on board.”