Pax Labs, the company behind the popular line of portable vapes known as the Pax vaporizers, announced Wednesday the finalization of a Series C financing round in which the San Francisco-based vape tech company raised a total of $46.7 million towards product development and overseas expansion — all while the company makes a move on the e-cigarette market.
The company, which is known for its handheld portable vaporizer intended for loose-leaf blends, the original Pax vaporizer, is by no means new to the world of vaporization, nor e-cigarettes if you consider the company’s e-cigarette esque ModelTwo, which was released back when the company was operating under the Ploom brand. But where the ModelTwo failed to make its mark on the vape scene, the company’s Pax vaporizers have done well to help establish the company and its vapor products.
Vape companies transitioning from the e-cigarette industry into the vaporizer industry and vice versa is certainly nothing new, as companies such as major e-cig manufacturer VMR Products, the company behind the V2 Cigs brand of electronic cigarette products, have already started announcing updates to their established vaporizers.
Juul, the latest e-cigarette from Pax Labs, is touted by the company as “Smoking Evolved” on its website. Engadget’s Aaron Souppouris wrote that the company “claims it’s solved all my e-cigarette issues with its first attempt, the $50 Juul.” However, Aaron isn’t so quick to assume, instead he hopes that the new e-cig will help him complete his transition from smoking to vaporizing.
In regards to the success of the company’s recent round of financing, CEO James Monsees was quoted by TechCrunch as having said that the “real success of this financing round isn’t reflected solely in the financials,” as the company “brought on investors from finance, pharma, entertainment and Silicon Valley so that, as we start tackling expansion and new product lines, we have all the expertise we need right at our fingertips.”
The real success of this financing round isn’t reflected solely in the financials (…) We brought on investors from finance, pharma, entertainment and Silicon Valley so that, as we start tackling expansion and new product lines, we have all the expertise we need right at our fingertips. (…) The breadth of opportunities in front of us is massive (…) We want to continue growing at the pace we’ve been growing while addressing new opportunities simultaneously, and that takes a lot of management overhead. But we’ve been preparing for this for some time.
According to TechCrunch, the last time Silicon Valley-based startup received funding was back in 2011.
In other e-cigarette coverage reported here at Immortal News, the CDC’s latest annual National Youth Tobacco Survey has found a tripling of teen e-cig use over the course of just one year.
