39. Phononic

Founder: Tony Atti (CEO), Patrick McCann, Matthew Trevithick
Launched: 2009
Headquarters: Durham, North Carolina
Funding: $250 million
Valuation: $650 million
Key technologies: Autonomous vehicles
Industry: Logistics
Previous appearances on Disruptor 50 List: 3 (No. 17 in 2019)

Phononic is a solid-state cooling company pioneering solutions to replace energy-guzzling cold storage with efficient, environmentally friendly supply chain technology.

It started out going after the compressors, heat sinks and fans in refrigerator engineering that dates back over a century, and had some notable wins — Thermo Fisher Scientific in the medical lab space and Pepsi Bottling in grocery. But since first being named a CNBC Disruptor in 2019, Phononic's business has shifted from generalized cooling and refrigeration solutions to focus on a more specific niche in the cold chain: "reefers" – refrigerated containers used to transport cold goods.

Traditionally, reefers are kept at one temperature, even though they hold many different products, meaning there's little accommodation for the various temps needed by items from ice cream and meat to certain medications. This also presents a challenge for logistics companies that have to expend the money and energy to cool an entire truck for smaller freight loads. But Phononic co-founder and CEO Tony Atti said if there's one thing he and his team love to work on, it's a challenge.

"The opportunities for us that are the most fun are those where end customers come to us with a vexing cooling problem that they can't get solved with a legacy incumbent," Atti recently told CNBC.

In response to outdated reefer tech, Phononic released its Actively Cooled Tote (ACT) – a mobile, temp-sensitive refrigerator about the size of a small cooler. Lightweight and portable, the ACT 2000 (the second iteration of the ACT released earlier this year) offers individualized temperatures and adaptive, on-demand cooling. The proprietary technology allows shippers to spend less getting food to e-grocers and grocery stores, minimizing food waste and lowering costs for suppliers and, as a result, the consumer – at a time when grocery costs have been at record highs.

The totes also eliminate environmentally destructive chemicals and conserve energy by allowing suppliers to cool only the totes instead of a large cargo area.

"We hear from trucking and shipping companies they are only using 5% to 50% of energy," Atti said in that recent CNBC interview. "That's [cost] and sustainability savings."

Its latest business pivot won't be the last. Phononic now has its sights set on applying its cooling tech to the precisely tuned lasers and detectors inside sensors in autonomous cars, improving the supply chain (and transportation in general) from an entirely new angle.