Ponto Footwear pioneers the “dress sneaker”, while building a sustainable work-leisure D2C brand. Consumers own a closet full of hyper-specific footwear that serve occasional use cases. Ponto fills the gap with good-looking transitional footwear infused with a socially conscious brand DNA and product design.
Milestones
Key Data
Founders
Headquarters
San Diego, California, USA
Founded 2018
Partnered 2022
Aaron Roubitchek
Joseph Marquis
Featured in Forbes, MensHealth, and more
Why we love Ponto
Apart from the super skilled founding team and their great vision, it was their holistic approach that really convinced us. Look at these highlights and see for yourself.
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Conscious consumerism: Ponto strives to produce the highest quality and least impactful products possible.
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Circular economy/production: Ponto believes in owning fewer high-quality products that can do more. Their shoes are minimalist in design, classy, elegant, and ridiculously comfortable.
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Less is more: Ponto has partnered with Soles4Souls, the largest not-for-profit shoe and apparel social enterprise in the US, to not only help uplift others, but also keep their used and unsellable inventory out of landfills.
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Conservation: Ponto donates 1% of sales to protecting our oceans. They have partnered with 1% For the Planet and The Changing Tides Foundation to help promote gender equity, social justice, and ocean health.
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Carbon neutral: Ponto’s shipments are totally carbon neutral and they are taking steps towards their ultimate goal of becoming Zero Carbon. They have partnered with Flexport’s Carbon Offset Program to minimize all shipping-related emissions and purchase carbon offsets for what they can’t avoid.
SDG Alignment
Responsible consumption and production:
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
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Climate action:
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
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The Founders
Aaron Roubitckek is co-founder and CEO, and spent five years at Google/YouTube, and two years before that at LinkedIn. He only left Google in September of 2021 and worked full time at Google and Ponto concurrently. He self funded Ponto until past seed round. He founded his first company while he was a student at UCLA, which was funded & incubated through the Startup UCLA Summer Accelerator. Aaron is a big believer that movement is medicine, and his preferred modes of movement are snowboarding, yoga, surfing, climbing and more.
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Joseph Marquis is co-founder and COO and obtained MSc in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley. Spent four years at several Silicon Valley startups working on Prototyping, Design, and leading overseas manufacturing for flagship product. Spent past 2.5 years as Co-Founder and COO of Ponto. Outside of Ponto, Joey is super interested in farming, gardening, and making/building things in general. He loves being outside and active - climbing, surfing, camping, volleyball, hiking. Pretty much anything where he gets to move his body.
