Eric Dayton, retail and restaurant founder and environmental champion of the “Keep the North Cold” movement, has been unusually quiet since closing his James Beard award-winning restaurant Bachelor Farmer and Marvel Bar in 2020 and slowly sunsetting winter outerwear company Askov Finlayson. Now he’s ready to talk about his next career chapter.

Today, Dayton officially steps out in his new role as tech founder to announce that his sustainability management platform, Cold, has raised $2.65 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round led by York IE of New Hampshire with participation from Oakland-based Better Ventures and several high-profile business leaders including Doug Baker, former Ecolab CEO; Archie Black, former CEO of SPS Commerce; and Target’s former chief marketing officer Michael Francis.

The insight that inspired Cold grew out of Dayton’s experience measuring Askov Finlayson’s carbon footprint. “We did sustainability the hard way at Askov Finlayson—the DIY version,” Dayton said. “So we’ve essentially built the tool I wish we’d had.”

The unlock for Dayton and Cold co-founder Dan Lindquist was positioning their proprietary software, which is already being used by 13 apparel and outdoors brands, as a necessary tool of business. They point to state regulations coming into play across the country around chemicals and emissions as well as large companies raising the environmental standards they require of their vendors. “We’re skating to where the puck is going,” Dayton said.

This is the first time Dayton, son of former Gov. Mark Dayton and Rockefeller heir Alida Rockefeller Messinger, has raised money for a business venture. And while his name and family connections tend to open doors, Dayton said the experience of pitching to VCs was as humbling as it was helpful in validating Cold’s potential to help companies navigate sustainability compliance.

Baker, a leader in sustainability and corporate responsibility during his time at Ecolab, was one of the first to make an angel investment in Cold. Baker is also co-founder of E2SG Partners, a private equity group focused on investing in businesses that “accelerate the greening of the economy while delivering exceptional economic returns.”

“I look at two things when deciding on an investment: do you think it can make money, and who is behind it,” Baker said. “This is a smart pivot on Eric’s part—leveraging what he learned running Askov Finlayson and applying it in a different way to serve the industry.”

Tracking sustainability

Askov Finlayson was only the fourth outdoor apparel company to achieve B Corp certification, based in large part on its “climate positive” mission and commitment to measure the annual carbon footprint of its operations and supply chain and give 110% of that amount to organizations working to solve the climate crisis. Dayton learned how tedious and time consuming the reporting process could be.

“There weren’t any tools. Companies much bigger than Askov were using spreadsheets and spending way too much time doing this manually,” Dayton said.

Lindquist, Dayton’s co-founder in Cold, is an expert in software as a service. He previously co-founded and served as chief product officer for MainStreet, which helps small businesses identify tax credits. Cold takes a similar approach to streamlining sustainability reports, leveraging AI and data management. Lindquist said Cold can do in an hour paperwork that might take employees 10 hours or more to accomplish.

“Our company exists because of chaos with certifications,” Lindquist said. “It really is a complex landscape with so many different calculations, and moving parts.”

A bigger impact

Dayton’s passion for Minnesota winters and solving the climate crisis has been well established, from Askov’s “Keep the North Cold” campaign to his role as board president of The Great Northern, an annual festival designed to celebrate the outdoors even in the coldest months. But Dayton had been thinking about ways to scale his impact, even before making the decision to sunset Askov Finlayson’s outerwear collection.

“I wasn’t jumping out of bed to sell more parkas,” Dayton said. “Keeping the north cold is what animated me.”

Askov’s website is still live, although most product is sold out. Dayton stopped short of declaring Askov Finlayson permanently closed. He described the status of the brand as “in hibernation.”

“I am proud of the impact we had, but the ability of Askov Finlayson to move the needle is always going to be directly proportional to the size of the company.”

Selling more coats wasn’t the answer. “This is too big for any one company,” Dayton said. “We need to collectively aggregate thousands of companies.”

Dayton started talking to tech entrepreneurs and investors. “I had a steep learning curve,” he said. SportsEngine co-founders Carson Kipfer and Greg Blasko came on as investors as did Chad Hetherington and Nick Larson, co-founders of The Stable, a Minneapolis commerce agency they sold to Accenture. “One of the reasons to raise money was for the mentorship,” Dayton said. “I wanted people I really respected to have some skin in the game.”

They advised him to spend time learning what potential customers wanted rather than lead with assumptions.

Early on, in 2023, Dayton said he and Lindquist were trying to help companies understand their carbon footprint. “We realized they don’t really care about our opinion,” Dayton said. “But when we made it about what Target requires, what REI requires, they care a lot. They wanted to see the clear ROI, and Cold is a more cost-effective way of meeting this challenge than hiring a dedicated sustainability person or a high price consultant.”

Eagan-based eco-friendly outerwear company Storm Creek actually did hire that sustainability person earlier this year. Laura Smith serves as director of product and sustainability. She’s currently working on B Corp certification for Storm Creek and said the Cold platform is saving her team “loads of time.”

Cold’s early adopters are apparel and outdoors brands such as Bombas, Topo Designs, and Outdoor Research. But Dayton said he sees the platform being useful beyond retail for “any company working with B Corps or brands that wants to show their commitment to sustainability.” He estimates Cold will approach $1 million in business within a year.

Most of Cold’s nine employees work out of a Minneapolis office. While Cold is born of Dayton’s Minnesota sensibility, he doesn’t see it as a local company.

“We’re trying to build a nationally relevant company, headquartered in Minneapolis.”