Carbon Removal Platform & Marketplace Carbonfuture Raises $2.8 Million, Expands To US
Carbonfuture has gained a huge vote of confidence in its ability to deliver on its promise of “carbon removal you can trust,” with investors putting $2.8 million in seed funding into the company. The investment round was led by Übermorgen Ventures, which was joined by early-stage investor seed + speed Ventures, impact investor Wi Venture, plus existing investors and additional business angels.
If humanity is to stand any chance of meeting the targets laid out in the Paris Agreement, then we need to use every available tool at our disposal. Carbon removal and capture has the potential to form a key part of the mix. Historically, the practice has been questioned and examined and carbon offsetting has often been criticized as a little murky and open to misuse. Carbonfuture set out to upend this perception by baking in the key values of effectiveness and traceability into its platform focused on carbon removals (instead of carbon offsets). Its approach is to deliver credibility and trustworthiness right from the start. It joins the new Climeworks facility in Iceland as a shining example of a company that is pushing the carbon capture space in the right direction.
Founded in 2020, the German company has established a strong team of multi-disciplinary experts from the worlds of IT and product development, finance and risk management, plus members with key management and entrepreneurial experience, and has recently opened shop in California.
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At its core, Carbonfuture is a marketplace and digital platform that collects, manages, and trades carbon sink certificates. People and companies are able to use the marketplace to buy carbon credits that are then used to offset the buyer’s carbon emissions. Where Carbonfuture differs from other carbon credit schemes is through its practice of using nothing but high-quality, long-term and science-based sink certificates. To provide transparency and trust, Carbonfuture uses independently verified standards and tamper-proof, digital tracking of credits through an innovative and low-energy blockchain.
These processes ensure that buyers can have full trust in the marketplace and the carbon future credits. When someone purchases credits through the platform, they can be assured that the CO2 has been safely removed from the atmosphere and will be sequestered for a minimum of 100 years. Company COO Andreas Hölzl explains why Carbonfuture operates in the way it does: “False climate promises are dangerous. In the end, it’s not just the individual company that suffers, but the entire market. It is important for us to be able to meet the high expectations of our partners and to stand for credibility in the entire segment.”
For the methods of Carbonfuture to be truly effective, they are going to need to be scaled up. Elena Walder-Shiavone, a Managing Partner at Übermorgen Ventures, is keenly aware of both the importance of carbon capture as part of the efforts to reach the targets of the Paris Agreement and the need to act fast, as she outlined in a statement: “To achieve the ambitious climate targets that have been set, there is no way around carbon sinks. Without innovative solutions such as those offered by Carbonfuture, we will not achieve climate neutrality by any stretch of the imagination. “Code red for humanity” statements like the one issued in the latest IPCC report confirm: The time to act is now. We need direct and effective climate protection on an industrial scale. However, these solutions must be science-based and traceable. With our investment in Carbonfuture, we want to guarantee that such approaches can be successfully scaled up to achieve tangible and long-term climate impact.”
Scaling is at the forefront of Carbonfuture’s plans, and this is the direction in which the new capital will be utilized. For its offering to have a significant impact in the fight against climate change, more team members and more carbon removal suppliers will need to be brought on board. CEO Dr. Hannes Junginger knows that expansion is key, and he has a vision for the future. “The road to Net-Zero will not be an easy one and can only be managed through cross-sector collaboration,” he explained. “Companies can offset their residual emissions with us; we offer financial revenues and incentives to suppliers of sinks as well as biochar producers to build and expand their climate protection activities. Together, we can set a standard for the entire evolving industry.”
Images courtesy of Carbonfuture.
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