🦜 30 Biodiversity Startups to Watch, according to VCs

Author

Laura at ClimateHack
August 30, 2024

VC funding in nature tech startups increased by 18%, from $1.56bn in 2022 to $1.85bn in 2023.

And the momentum continues into 2024 with NatCap ($10M Series A), goodcarbon (€5.25 million) and Earthshot Labs ($5.5M) just some of the startups announcing fresh funding.

Here at ClimateHack, we caught up with 7 VCs investing in NatureTech to hear which startups have caught their attention. Solutions include:

🔍 Technologies leveraging environmental data solutions and nature mapping data offering improved MRV for biodiversity.

🌲 Agroforestry systems and soil carbon audits accelerating biodiversity restoration and preservation.

🐝 Pollination activity and sustainable livestock management driving agricultural efficiency and environmental stewardship.

Here’s what they said:

🇸🇪 Terralabs

  • Recent Funding: €4M

  • CEO and Founder: Peder Stahle

  • What: Satellite forest tracking and AI/ML-layer to analyse, detect changes & generate real-time alerts with actionable insights for forest managers.

🇬🇧 NatCap Research 

  • Total Funding: £13M

  • CEO: Sebastian Leape

  • What: Providing nature intelligence, supporting companies to measure, report, and act on nature. Spawned out of Oxford University.

🇫🇷 Iceberg Data Lab*

  • Recent Funding: $10M 

  • Founders: Pierre-Olivier Haye, Matthieu Maurin

  • What: Providing quality environmental data solutions to financial institutions, helping them report and manage environmental impact of their portfolios.

🇬🇧 Agricarbon

  • Total Funding: $18.9M

  • Founders: Annie Leeson, Stuart Arbuckle

  • What: Providing accurate soil carbon stock audits based on high-intensity direct sampling, supporting adoption of soil carbon sequestration.

🇬🇧 Verna Earth

  • Total Funding: $2.72M

  • Co-Founders: Matthew Brown, Rafi Cohe

  • What: Helping local planning authorities deliver better environmental outcomes in a more efficient way.

  • Total Funding: $2.85M

  • Founders: Murray Collins, Ed Mitchard

  • What: Providing high quality nature mapping data on forest coverage and carbon storage for nature-based solutions developers and investors, bringing transparency and integrity to the carbon markets.

🇩🇪 Ruumi

  • Stage: Seed

  • Founders: Johannes Scheibe Nørgaard, Daniel Hofmann, Paddy Long

  • What: Improving soil health, only occurs through improving biodiversity above and below ground, Ruumi does by keeping livestock moving and validated nature improvements with earth observation. 

🇬🇧 Elaniti

  • Founder: Scott Jarrett 

  • Stage: Pre-Seed

  • What: Mapping and understanding the functional relationships in the soil microbiome. With more life in a teaspoon of soil, biodiversity starts in the soil.

🇬🇧 Olombria

  • Total Funding: $300K+

  • CEO and Founder: Tashia Tucker

  • What: Showing that improving insect activity, increases pollination rates, results in direct lift in yield and profitability for farmers.

🇺🇸 Propagate*

  • Total Funding: $11.6M

  • Founders: Jeremy Kaufman, Ethan Steinberg

  • What: Making it easy for landowners to design, plant, and manage agroforestry systems so that they can increase the cash yield of farmland.

🇰🇪 Iroko Analytics

  • Funding: Pre-seed, $600k 

  • Founders: Jules Caron, Misha Lepetic

  • What: Early-stage carbon project developer with proprietary tools to identify the top 1% of land suitable for Afforestation, Reforestation & Revegetation (ARR) in Africa.

🇿🇦 ValueNature

  • Funding: Pre-seed, undisclosed

  • Founder: Simon Morgan

  • What: African biodiversity credit project facilitators, including embedded carbon biodiversity, creating a platform to purchase Nature Investment Certificates (NIC) (NICs are 10-year contractual agreement to conserve or restore 1 hectare of land).

🇸🇬 Imperative

  • Funding: Undisclosed

  • Founders: Scobie MacKay

  • What:  Next-gen carbon project developer focused on ultra-high-quality projects in the Global South with a focus on nature based solutions (like Spekboom)

 🇿🇦 Bahari Labs

  • Funding: Pre-seed, $80,000

  • Founders: Jay Van Der Walt, Dr. Kathryn Morrissey, and Andrea Plos

  • What: Africa's first ClimateTech company working to reduce ruminant methane emissions by making livestock more efficient, using the bioactive power of select seaweeds.

🇬🇧 NatureMetrics*

  • Total Funding: $42M

  • CEO: Dimple Patel, Founder Director: Kat Bruce

  • What: Converting the complexities of nature into actionable insights.

🇩🇪 Green Account

🇩🇪 Nala Earth

🇫🇷 Darwin Data

🇩🇪 Leeana

  • Total Funding: $125K

  • Founders: Lewis Pierson, Denis Frischmann

  • What: Streamlining the vast amounts of available biodiversity data and guiding organisations through the process of understanding, measuring, and disclosing their impacts and risks.

🇫🇷 CarbonFarm*

  • Funding: Seed / $3.91 million

  • Founders: Vassily Carantino, James Hastwell

  • What: Harnessing satellites and AI to monitor and certify
    decarbonisation projects, such as rice farming, at scale.

🇬🇧 Pivotal

  • Funding: Seed / $5.6 million

  • Founders: Zoe Balmforth and Cameron Frayling

  • What: Building an economy that puts nature and business in balance, Pivotal describes this as an economy for our future – where there’s always a positive exchange.

🇩🇪 The Landbanking Group 

🇫🇷 Genesis

  • Total Funding: Undisclosed

  • Founders: Quentin Sannié, Adrienne De Malleray

  • What: Developing a recognised soil health rating, based on a scientific diagnosis of soil eco-systemic functions. Their game-changer method provides real measurements on environmental impact.

🇨🇭 Xilva

  • Total Funding: $1.76M

  • CEO: Tim Duehrkoop

  • What: Building the digital infrastructure for forestry investments with a focus on enabling funding through holistic project assessments.

🇨🇴 Amazonía Emprende 

  • Founder: Julie Hernández

  • What: A biological local inputs supplier and seed bank for reforestations and restorations in the Amazon, fighting against deforestation through the development of Nature-based Solutions; training in ecosystem restoration and conservation and by offering academic, scientific and business tourism programmes.

🇦🇷 RUUTs

  • Founder: Pablo Ferder

  • Equity Rounds: 1

  • What: large-scale land regeneration through regenerative agriculture to address climate change and environmental degradation.

  • CEO and Co-Founder: Jesús Morales Bautista

  • What: Promoting the economic, environmental, and social development of communities and forests.

🇲🇽 Tierra Foods

  • Total Funding: $496K

  • CEO: Marcela Flores

  • What: Turning CO2 into minerals in the soil, permanently removing atmospheric CO2.

  • CEO and Co-Founder: Adriana Luna-Diaz

  • What: Developing biotechnological solutions based on beneficial microorganisms that allow farmers to have better livelihoods while restoring the natural wealth of the land.

For transparency: Investors that have ties with the company are marked with a (*)