SkyCell, the Swiss startup revolutionizing pharmaceutical supply chains with its hybrid containers, has secured an impressive $57 million in funding from Catalyst, M&G Investments' $6 billion purpose-led private assets strategy. This financial boost coincides with SkyCell's ambitious global expansion, boasting over 55% compound growth over the last three years. The company's mission is to expand its container availability and strengthen its global service center network, ensuring prompt service to customers within 24 hours at their global manufacturing hubs.
Praveg Patil, Deputy Head of EMEA Investment for M&G’s Catalyst team, has also joined SkyCell's board as a non-executive director. SkyCell's innovative approach aims to lead the pharmaceutical industry toward a CO2-neutral supply chain as it transports over $1.5 billion worth of pharmaceutical goods monthly, including vaccines, cancer treatments, diabetes care, and diagnostic solutions. The company's proprietary software, hardware, and big data solutions optimize the pharmaceutical supply chain, enhancing the delivery of sensitive drugs by air and reducing quality approval time significantly.
The pharmaceutical industry's considerable carbon footprint, representing 4.4% of global emissions, has driven the need for supply chain sustainability. SkyCell positions itself to become the sustainability partner of choice for the pharmaceutical supply chain. Established in 2013 by Nico Ros and Richard Ettl, SkyCell introduced the hybrid container concept to protect temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals during transit, potentially saving $35 billion worth of products lost annually due to temperature excursions in the supply chain.
SkyCell's containers offer a door-to-door container solution, protecting pharmaceuticals from extreme temperatures ranging from -30°C to +70°C. These high-precision Swiss-manufactured containers have a failure rate of less than 0.1%, compared to the industry's accepted rate of 2% to 12%, ensuring that high-value medicines reach patients effectively while significantly reducing waste for pharmaceutical companies. Moreover, SkyCell's lightweight design and greater payload efficiency reduce CO2 emissions by up to 50%. This new investment positions SkyCell to further its growth and global footprint, making a substantial impact on pharmaceutical supply chains and the environment.
