Jaden Smith’s Just Water just hit $100 million valuation

即使当时他只是一个补间，贾登·史密斯（Jaden Smith）也想有所作为。在看到塑料水瓶乱扔垃圾的海洋和地球之后，他决定创建一家公司，用更可持续的东西代替了所有这些一次性塑料瓶。“我知道这将很难创造出新的苏打水。而且我知道，世界各地的水食谱几乎是一样的，与苏打水公司相比，创建新的水瓶公司要容易得多。”Smithtells德赢提款in a phone call from Helsinki where he had just landed. “And that’s what I wanted to do, and I was like, 12 years old.”

With the help of his parents, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, in 2015, he founded JUST Water, selling responsibly sourced water from upstate New York that is packaged in a bottle made of 82% renewable resources. The timing could not have been better as consumers become increasingly aware of the impact of single-use plastics on the planet. JUST Water quickly became known as a better alternative to, say, Nestle’s bottled water.

Fast forward four years, JUST has three bottling facilities in the U.S., U.K., and Australia and sells its distinctive mostly-paper water bottles in 10 countries and is currently sold in over 15,000 retail locations in North America. JUST is expanding to the United Arab Emirates soon, is launching in 21,000 stores in Japan even sooner, and is sending more of its signaturetetra顶级纸箱to line the shelves of Target, Publix, and CVS, as well as signing a deal to be IKEA Australia’s exclusive water provider for the next two years—all of which helped the still young water company earn its new $100 million valuation.

“We doubled our business last year, we tripled the business this year, and are on track to almost triple it again next year,” says JUST Water CEO Ira Laufer who credits the company’s exponential growth to increased consumer awareness 0f plastic’s environmental problem, good timing with the global push tostop plastic water bottles，以及“非常激进的增长战略”。

While the company has grown very rapidly—and shows no signs of slowing—it is staying true to Smith’s early vision of a sustainable water company that is good for the planet, a mission that clearly resonates with consumers. Two years after it was founded, JUST Water became acertified B Corp, maintaining and upholding严格的标准of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. They sent a water filtration system to Flint, Michigan, that can clean up to 10 gallons of water at once for families, and Smith has been running his免费素食食品卡车for the homeless as another way to give back. They also just与Allbird合作to create a sustainable line of sneakers with 100% of the proceeds going to Leonardo DiCaprio’sAmazon Forest Fund.

It is also working with TetraPak and local governments to ensure that its packaging is, in fact, recyclable and also continuing to upgrade the packaging, so that a greater share is made out of recycled material. “We’ve been able to continue making our packaging out of even more and more material as the lifespan of the company keeps on going,” says Smith, who will be discussing JUST’s future at theupcoming Web Summit. “It’s like how the iPhone is updated almost every year, we try to update [the packaging] almost every year.”

尽管该公司发展迅速，但史密斯（Smith）认识到，有一天和碳足迹可能变得太大，无法忠于其环境根源。“可以到达这一点，您知道，‘嘿，这已经不再是我们原始任务的一部分。’而且，是的，我确实相信我们可以到达那里。但是目前，我们以一种非常酷的方式在世界上以一种非常时髦的方式成长。但是我们的竞争对手比我们大得多。太疯狂了，”史密斯说。“我确实觉得如果我们确实达到了比竞争对手大得多的地步，那将是一个环境问题。但这还有很长的路要走。”