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NCV Portfolio Spotlight: How Surge Supply Co. Is Rewriting the Operating System for Industry Packaging
At NCV, we are always on the lookout for visionary founders who tackle massive, fragmented industries with modern, scalable solutions. That is why we are thrilled to spotlight our portfolio company, Surge Supply Co., and its founder, Lukas Ambrose.
Surge Supply Co. is building the operating system for retail and foodservice packaging. Today, most operators manage their packaging through a chaotic web of emails and spreadsheets spread across 10 or more vendors. Surge solves this by giving chains a single platform to forecast packaging needs, track inventory across locations, manage
orders, and monitor sustainability metrics.
By pairing cutting-edge software with a full line of sustainable, custom-branded disposables—including cups, lids, bags, and food containers—Surge provides customers with both high-quality products and the digital tools needed to manage them seamlessly. Today, Surge supports more than 4,000 store locations nationwide.
From Dorm Room Experiments to Nationwide Impact
The inspiration behind Surge stems from Lukas’s childhood growing up in Southern California, where participating in beach cleanups made plastic waste a deeply personal issue. Later, as a student at the University of Oregon, he began experimenting with better paper straws right from his dorm room.
Working with early customers revealed a much larger industry pain point: managing packaging was fragmented, inefficient, and often treated as an afterthought. Lukas set out to build a company grounded in three core beliefs that packaging should be simple, strengthen a store’s branding, and move the industry toward sustainable materials without charging a premium for it.
Their tagline sums it up: “Simplifying Packaging, Scaling Sustainability”.
Building for Scale: The NCV Partnership & Disciplined Execution
Our partnership with Surge began with a rigorous diligence process. During those early conversations, our team pushed Lukas and his team on key strategic questions:
How to balance the supply business with the software platform.
How to refine their go-to-market strategy.
How to shorten the sales cycle while scaling capacity.
Answering those tough questions helped Surge sharpen how they articulate and execute their vision long before the investment was finalized.
As Surge built out its customer onboarding process, a mentor recommended The Checklist Manifesto. This key takeaway was the most effective fix for a complex, multi-step process. Opting for a simple, disciplined checklist rather than added complexity now directly shapes how Surge designs onboarding in its platform, streamlining everything from design approvals to the initial order.
What’s Next for Surge Supply Co.?
Surge is focused on making its platform the central hub for how retailers manage their packaging operations. Customers can look forward to powerful new features designed to increase visibility and control:
An Onboarding Hub: Unifying design approvals, pricing, and key documents in one central location.
A Compliance Dashboard: Translating complex state packaging regulations and single-use plastic bans into plain English to keep operators compliant.
Forecasting Tools: Predicting inventory needs to prevent stockouts before they happen.
As more state and local governments ban foam and single-use plastics, Surge is uniquely positioned to help operators transition smoothly to compliant, eco-friendly materials without sacrificing brand identity.
With major new retail partner launches on the horizon, expanding nationwide operations, and a growing team, Surge is poised for extraordinary growth. All of us at NCV are proud to partner with Lukas and the entire Surge team as they continue to simplify packaging and scale sustainability across the country.
