The most interesting thing about a warehouse is often the trash it produces. For e-commerce, that trash is frequently a mountain of plastic air pillows and bubble wrap, destined for a landfill after a single, brief journey. Benjamin Moore, an engineer in Greenville, South Carolina, spent years in the back of a plant trying to form paper in a way that could replace it. The result is Bubble Paper, a company that makes 100% paper-based, curbside-recyclable protective packaging. It is a simple, physical bet: that the unit economics and sustainability pressure will finally tip in favor of a material that has been around for centuries.
A wedge of paper and physics
Bubble Paper's product line reads like a direct substitution for plastic packaging staples: wrap, pads, mailers, and even specialized liners for cold-chain shipping. The technical claim is that a proprietary paper-forming process replicates the cushioning and protective feel of bubble wrap without the plastic. All products are FSC-certified, carry the How2Recycle label, and are made in the USA. For procurement teams at e-commerce brands or third-party logistics warehouses, the pitch is straightforward. It is not about building a new software layer or changing workflows. It is about swapping one roll on the packing line for another, and checking a box for corporate sustainability goals in the process.
Fueled by the Palmetto State
Bubble Paper's story is deeply intertwined with South Carolina's innovation ecosystem. Founded in 2015, the company became an SCRA Member Company in 2018, gaining access to grant funding and support from the state-chartered nonprofit. This relationship culminated in a significant milestone last year. In July 2024, SC Launch Inc. announced its third investment in Bubble Paper, leading a $10 million Series A round. While the full investor syndicate beyond SCRA and Octagon Capital is not public, the round implies serious momentum. Dealroom estimated the company's enterprise valuation at between $51 million and $77 million as of June 2024. The company was also named SCRA's Company of the Year, a signal of its standing within its home state's tightly-knit support network.
The math on the packing floor
The bet only works if the numbers work. For a packaging buyer, the calculation is a function of cost per unit, protective performance, and the increasingly tangible cost of waste. Plastic bubble wrap is cheap and effective, but its end-of-life cost is being externalized less and less. Municipalities are raising tipping fees, consumers are demanding sustainable packaging, and brands face reputational risk from plastic-heavy unboxing videos. Bubble Paper's paper products are curbside recyclable, which simplifies disposal for the end customer and can improve a brand's environmental scoring.
Let's run a back-of-the-envelope check. The US protective packaging market is measured in the tens of billions of dollars annually. If Bubble Paper can capture even a single percentage point of that market with a product that carries a modest premium over virgin plastic, the revenue potential quickly justifies its current valuation. The real test is whether that premium is justified by a reduction in waste-hauling costs, improved brand perception, or compliance with incoming regulations on plastic packaging.
Where the wheels could come off
For all its home-state support, Bubble Paper faces a steep climb in a commoditized, scale-driven industry. The risks are not subtle.
- The incumbent's moat. Ranpak, a publicly traded company, is the established giant in paper-based protective packaging. It has global scale, decades of customer relationships, and a product portfolio that dwarfs Bubble Paper's. Displacing an incumbent requires more than a marginally better mousetrap; it requires a superior sales motion and a compelling reason for a logistics manager to switch suppliers.
- The silence of the market. There is a notable absence of public customer announcements, major partnership deals, or deployment figures. While the SCRA funding and valuation suggest progress, the lack of named enterprise logos makes it difficult to gauge true commercial traction beyond South Carolina.
- The solo founder scale. Benjamin Moore is the engineer who invented the process. Scaling a hardware manufacturing and business-to-business sales operation from a regional player to a national contender is a different discipline. The recent hire of a Marketing Manager is a step, but building a sales engine capable of going toe-to-toe with Ranpak's distributors is a multi-year undertaking.
The company's path is classic hardware climatetech: prove the product works in a niche, scale manufacturing to bring costs down, and then use sustainability as a wedge into larger, more price-sensitive contracts. Its early validation is entirely local, but the $10 million war chest is meant to change that.
Bubble Paper does not need to reinvent packaging. It just needs to be a better, cheaper, and easier choice than the plastic it replaces. On paper, the logic is sound. In the warehouse, the competition is ruthless. The company's fate will be decided not by awards in South Carolina, but by purchase orders from warehouses in Ohio, Nevada, and New Jersey. Its job is to make the math so obvious that the switch from plastic is not an environmental act, but a simple economic one.
Watts Lindqvist is Climate and Energy Editor at Startuply. To beat the incumbents, Bubble Paper must outmaneuver Ranpak, the $700 million market cap paper packaging giant that already has a headlock on the sustainable void-fill market.
Sources
- [Bubble Paper] Our Story | https://www.bubblepaper.com/history
- [SCRA] SCRA Success Story - Bubble Paper | https://scra.org/stories/scra-success-story-bubble-paper/
- [SCbio, July 2024] SC Launch Inc. Announces Third Investment In Bubble Paper | https://www.scbio.org/sc-launch-announces-third-investment-in-bubble-paper-2/
- [Dealroom, June 2024] Bubble Paper Company Profile | https://app.dealroom.co/companies/bubble_paper
- [Greenville Business Magazine] Paper, Not Plastic | https://www.greenvillebusinessmag.com/stories/paper-not-plastic,2968
- [Charleston Business Magazine] Paper, Not Plastic | https://www.charlestonbusinessmag.com/stories/paper-not-plastic,2968
- [Packaging Insights, 2024] Bubble Paper Company Profile | https://www.packaginginsights.com
- [Upstate Business Journal] SCRA Presents Company of the Year Awards | https://www.scra.org/scra-presents-company-founder-and-researcher-of-the-year-awards-at-annual-summit/