Exclusive: SnoFox raises $4.5M for cold chain sustainability

Software developer SnoFox closed a $4.5 million seed round to reach more warehouses, shippers and other companies that store food and medications along the so-called "cold chain."

Why it matters: Keeping stuff cool demands huge amounts of electricity and can release potent greenhouse gases — making cold chain logistics a sector ripe for cost savings.

How it works: SnoFox offers its software and analytics to warehouses and other facilities as a subscription.

• The NYC-based startup is working with 10 facilities in the U.S. It raised the seed round to expand hiring and onboard more customers.

Details: Voyager Ventures led the all-equity round, which closed in March.

• Pale Blue Dot, Ponderosa Ventures and Mudcake participated.

State of play: Nearly 80% of cold storage sites were built before 2000.

Meanwhile: Refrigerators often leak hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which are magnitudes more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Bottom line: Shipping and storing food generates 3.5% of global emissions — even as mountains of food are ultimately lost to unreliable refrigeration.

1 fun thing: CEO Ben Rubin founded the company with his older brother, Matt.

• Their father, medical professor Harvey Rubin, in 2010 launched Energize the Chain, a Philadelphia nonprofit that uses cellphone towers to power small refrigerators for storing vaccines in remote areas.