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It ’s a scene that toy out in cities and suburbs across America : A tree gets cut down , and rather of being mill into lumber , the whole affair gets shredded .
There are a range of reasons why , none of which have sat well with Ben Christensen . Christensen grew up in New Mexico among the state ’s towering pine , and if that was n’t enough to tincture a good for you esteem for trees , his family is steeped in timberland , including his Father-God who is a carpenter and woodworker .
In nearly every compositor’s case , the big reason that Grant Wood gets macerate is coordination , Christensen said . “ If you ’re a tree care religious service , you ’re incentivized to get to your next reservation , ” he secernate TechCrunch . “ If you have to force back out of your way to drop off log somewhere that would reuse them , it ’s not going to work . ”
Christensen , along with Marisa Repka and Theo Hooker , perceived opportunity in the atrophied wood , foundingCambium . The startup reuses Sir Henry Wood that would otherwise be send to the chipper or the burn agglomerate , and it does that mostly through software to connect and coordinatedisparate parts of the supply chain of mountains .
Cambium ’s master selling tip is that they can facilitate companies buy or sell more wood , depend on which side of the transaction they ’re on . The startup promises better service and more consistent , long - term contract .
Part of the way it does that is by developing its own products . Cambium has develop techniques to ensure consistency from historically inconsistent source of woodwind instrument . It works with suppliers and mills to make the products , and it sells the products to companies like Room and Board and Steelcase .
In accession to sell furniture - grade lumber , Cambium also produces cross - laminated woodland , an engineer wood that ’s formed into panels , work out in partnership with manufacturers including Mercer Mass Timber , SmartLam , Sterling Structural , and Vaagen Timbers .
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Using salvaged Sir Henry Joseph Wood is more than just a business chance , it ’s a climate - friendly one as well . “ Every time you move Mrs. Henry Wood 10 sea mile instead of 1,000 , there ’s a real carbon benefit . And every sentence you keep a tree alert in the forest , there ’s a real carbon benefit , ” Christensen say .
A smattering of large timber companies dominate the securities industry , but outside of that , it ’s extremely fragmented . “ It generally assume eight to 10 businesses to get material to an end customer , ” said Christensen , Cambium ’s CEO .
At each stair , there ’s a transaction , which is where Cambium ’s software comes in . The inauguration currently work with around 350 different entity , including tree aid caller , trucking companies , and saw mills . Most of them have n’t digitized their operations , Christensen said , and absent a good ground , they are n’t really interested in doing so .
Cambium pitches customers on the business opportunity , not the package . “ If you call my uncle and taste to betray him wood software program , full luck . That ’s a short conversation , ” Christensen said . “ But if you call him and you say , ‘ Hey , I want to buy 40,000 board - feet of four - quarter white oak tree from you , and I require to buy it from you every 60 days . ’ He ’s like , ‘ Heck yeah , let me get out my penitentiary and paper . Let ’s have a conversation . ’ ”
By get a window into transaction at every step of the value chain , Cambium is gathering large amounts of data point about how the timberland diligence function . With that information , it ’s develop an AI that can help pen - and - theme businesses like his uncle ’s to digitise their books .
To build the models and amplify the platform , Cambium raise $ 18.5 million led by VoLo Earth Ventures , the company exclusively told TechCrunch . Other enter investors admit 81 Collection , Alumni Ventures , Dangerous Ventures , Groundswell , MaC Venture Capital , NEA , acclivity of the Rest , Soma Capital , Tunitas Ventures , Ulu Ventures , Understorey , and Woven Earth .
Currently , Cambium attracts companies to the platform by offering them access to customer , but Christensen allege he wants the next version to alter the way they keep their book without changing much about how they lock their clientele . The end , he said , is to use the AI under development to extract information from sound call and drop it into the right playing field in a database .
“ It ’s about understanding how mass in this industry want to receive information . If you ’re driving a hand truck , you ’re not on a laptop . You need to get a textual matter , you want to get a vox call , ” Christensen said . “ Those are the things that we ’re doing that make it really uncomplicated . ”
