Ember LifeSciences announced it has raised $16.5 million in Series A financing to accelerate development and commercialization of its cold chain technology aimed at reducing temperature-related spoilage and packaging waste across global healthcare distribution.
The round was led by Sea Court Capital and included participation from Cardinal Health, Carrier Ventures, and other investors. The company also said the investor group includes former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Ember LifeSciences is positioning its temperature-control platform as an alternative to single-use cold-chain packaging and as a way to cut losses from temperature excursions, which the company cited as a significant pain point for the pharmaceutical cold chain. Ember LifeSciences said the ecosystem incurs $35 billion in financial losses each year from temperature excursions, while generating 330 billion pounds of waste from single-use cold chain packaging.
The company plans to use the new capital to advance its product roadmap, including the launch of the Ember Cube 2, a second-generation version of its digital shipping box designed to transport temperature-sensitive medicines. Ember said the original Ember Cube introduced features such as cloud-based temperature reporting, GPS location tracking, and return-to-sender technology, and that the next-generation model incorporates learnings from early deployments.
Ember Cube 2 is intended to support organizations shipping high volumes of temperature-sensitive therapies and is designed for scale and efficiency through vacuum insulation and proprietary bio-based organic phase change material packs for thermal control. Ember said the platform is evolving into a configurable passive system intended to broaden adoption across healthcare networks and support patient-focused use cases across the supply chain.
Beyond commercial deployments, the company said it is preparing to introduce consumer-oriented, patient-focused products to improve medicine storage and transportation at the individual level, while also supporting high-volume deployments with domestic customers.
Ember LifeSciences said its cold chain technology is being adopted by pharmaceutical distributors, specialty and infusion pharmacies, and testing laboratories, naming CVS Health, Chartwell, and USADA among users.
Ember LifeSciences launched as an offshoot of Ember Technologies, known for its temperature-control consumer products, including its temperature-control mug brand. Ember LifeSciences is now focused on applying its temperature-control technology to medical distribution and vaccine logistics.
KEY QUOTES:
“Our breakthrough cold chain technology ensures life-saving medicines reach their destination safely, reliably and sustainably.”
Clay Alexander, Founder and CEO, Ember LifeSciences
