KLAW Industries: Crushing It With NY Innovation

KLAW Industries yellow truck parked outside in front of a red building

Wine bottles repurposed as sustainable, sidewalk and bridge-strengthening material? 

KLAW Industries, LLC, a Southern Tier startup success story, is remaking hard-to-recycle glass into Pantheon™, a product that reinforces and reduces the amount of cement used in concrete mixes, leaving a lower carbon footprint—and with clients including the NYS Department of Transportation, the City of Binghamton and municipalities across New York State. 

Their industry award-winning strategy is a solid example of how New York State builds economic opportunity by strategically investing in innovation and taking ideas from concept to commercialization.

In 2019, while still an engineering student at SUNY Broome, KLAW COO Jacob Kumpon recalls partnering with his cousin, Jack Lamuraglia, on an idea sparked by tours of recycling facilities where they learned that “millions of tons of glass we recycle every year end up in landfills.”  Looking to solve this problem by connecting that glass to the local construction market, SUNY Broome connected the pair to the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator, part of NYSTAR’s statewide certified business incubator and innovation hot spot network, and key to helping the cousins “take our idea and turn it into something real,” Kumpon says. 

“The Koffman Incubator helped us grow our business, skills, and network, formally introducing us into the NYSTAR ecosystem in 2021 through the NYS Innovation Summit,” he says, which led to mentorship and financial support. “The connections we made through this network early on have been the key to KLAW's success in New York and the defining reason we have been able to quickly grow in the Southern Tier.”

The pair aimed to find a solution that would lower the fees incurred by many New York State municipalities without the means to cost effectively sort and recycle glass—and also reduce the amount of glass that ends up in landfills. 

KLAW Industries team photo

In 2021, the partners found a home for their idea-building at a 6,000-square-foot blighted industrial facility on Binghamton’s east side, which they upgraded with assistance from the city’s economic development department. The following year, the City gave them their first big break, utilizing their material Pantheon™ in sidewalk upgrade projects, reusing glass placed at the curb by Binghamton residents for new construction on those same streets.

Other state entities factored into their journey, as they refined and strengthened their business. KLAW’s inclusion in the 2021-22 cohort for the NYSERDA-backed Scale for Climate Tech, helping hardtech cleantech startups, is “one of the strongest programs we have been a part of,” Kumpon says. And a NYSTAR-supported FuzeHub manufacturing grant allowed them to purchase KLAW’s signature yellow truck in 2023.

Kumpon describes the truck, a dry bulk pneumatic trailer, as “basically a big soda can” that prevents contamination of the Pantheon™ powder, which it transports from KLAW’s production facility to concrete plants. “This FuzeHub project allowed us to scale our manufacturing to tractor trailer-level volumes and fit into our customers’ regular supply chain,” he says.

The company marked a major milestone in 2024, with the New York State Department of Transportation approval of KLAW’s Pantheon™ product for use in state projects—its strength evidenced in the NYSDOT’s U.S. Route 11 bridge replacement in the Village of Whitney Point.  Quoted in the Governor’s announcement of the project, Kumpon said it reflected a “commitment to developing and utilizing the best materials available for our infrastructure. The collaboration between NYSDOT and our local contractors has brought great attention to the work here in Whitney Point and is a hallmark example of performance-based decarbonization in the industry.”

In September 2025, through NYSTAR's Innovation Matching Grants Program, ESD further bolstered federal funds the company had received from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. KLAW was one of 25 New York-based businesses awarded grants in Round 3 IMG program funding, allowing the company to complete a facility expansion, grow their glass supplier network and solidify their mission of bringing sustainable materials into the concrete industry mix. 

"This project with ESD was a massive step for us. It allowed us to expand our operation in Binghamton and grow our workforce,” Kumpon says, “and seeing our company transition from a startup to a full-scale operation is extremely rewarding for the team here."

Kumpon also is paying it forward, by giving local students a chance to learn on the job. Bryant Patterson, a Maine-Endwell high school senior (Class of 2027), has honed his welding skills through the Broome-Tioga BOCES Career & Technical Education Welding program. Patterson has worked part-time during his school week and Kumpon describes him as already one of KLAW’s best fabricators. 

“What I enjoy most about working at KLAW and learning the trades is how every day is hands-on, and you get to be a part of the outcome you're producing,” Patterson says. “Every day we're learning something new and pushing the boundaries of our skills.”

Seven years after Kumpon’s idea took form, KLAW is now in a growth stage. Today, KLAW supplies Pantheon™ to concrete producers across New York and has expanded into equipment manufacturing, helping concrete producers and recyclers across the U.S. bring glass-processing technology to their markets. 

"Throughout our story, there have been many people who have helped us grow to where we are today. One of the unique things about New York is that the people behind these programs genuinely care and are invested in your success. When you're a founder at 19 trying to figure it out, that makes all the difference."