It seems junk mail can be profitable. Earth Class Mail, a company launched four years ago that scans postal mail and sends the results via e-mail to clients so they can decide what to do with it from anywhere, announced its most successful quarter to date earlier this week.

According to Jeff Wenker, Earth Class Mail’s director of public relations, the company closed on $13.3 million of Series A financing in January. Its customer base also grew by more than 40 percent last quarter. Wenker said it was the third quarter in a row during which the company experienced customer growth at that pace.

In the last year, Earth Class Mail also opened its first retail storefront in Seattle which allows customers who want to, to walk in and pick up packages sent to their Earth Class Mail address. Although not many customers are the Seattle store's services right now, the company will open stores in New York City and San Francisco later this spring, according to Wenker.

"As we open up stores in various cities, we’re going to be doing more consumer advertising," he said. "We’re going to be driving traffic to those stores."

He also said the company will open two more “hub” facilities -- where mail is delivered and scanned—in Kansas and Virginia late this year to supplement its current one in Oregon.

Earth Class Mail allows clients to have their mail sent to one of 18 post office boxes or the Beaverton, Ore. facility where the company collects it, digitizes it, and delivers the electronic images to corporate clients all over the world. Delivering postal mail online enables mobile employees and telecommuters to access all communications remotely, as they do email, fax and voicemail. The company claims that it recycles over 90 percent of the physical mail it opens and scans and more than 99 percent of the unopened mail [see “A paperless post office box,” www.sustainableindustries.com Nov. 24, 2007].