Seed Of The Week: Carbonable

What: Carbonable is developing a platform to enable greater investment in decarbonization projects that reduce climate-warming gasses in the atmosphere. The company has identified five natural settings that it believes could benefit from investment to increase their carbon-capturing potential. The company has divided these settings into NFTs which can be purchased by anyone. The money raised goes to protecting and expanding those territories. That, in turn, generates carbon credits, which can then be sold on exchange markets where larger companies purchase them to offset their own carbon emissions. The profits are then shared back with the holders of the NFTs. Meanwhile, the platform lets NFT holders monitor the state of the lands in which they invested.

Why: While most policy debates focus on lowering emissions, scientists also believe there needs to be a greater effort to remove carbon from the atmosphere to slow climate change. Natural areas like forests, mangroves, and wetlands, are referred to by scientists as "carbon sinks" because they naturally capture and hold CO2 for long periods of time. But while nature offers an efficient carbon-removal system, it receives only 3% of climate-related spending. Carbonable believes it can use the blockchain to increase that investment and expand those natural areas to increase carbon capture. The ensuing carbon credits created also address another issue. The carbon offset market reached $1 billion in 2021 as companies sought ways to minimize their environmental impact. Bloomberg projects that the market will grow to $200 billion by 2050. Carbonable is betting that its platform can accelerate the creation of carbon credits to provide the supply that will meet that surging demand. By improving accessibility and transparency around carbon credits, the idea is to draw in more companies and investors.

Who: Co-founders are Guillaume Leti and Ramzi Laieb, who had previously co-founded Art4Humans, which tried to connect art and sustainability.

Seed: $1.2 million

Investors: Ethereal Ventures (represented by Managing Partner Min Teo) and La Poste Ventures (represented by Olivier Senot) led the investment. Ethereal is the investment fund of Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum. La Poste Ventures is the impact fund operated on behalf of the French postal service by Xange. The round also included money from Sylvain Theveniaud, Managing Director of Allianz Accelerator.

Carbonable had previously raised a pre-seed round from investors such as Coline Debayle, Co-Founder of Time For the Planet, and Abdelhamid Bakhta, an influential leader in the Ethereum ecosystem.

What's Next: Carbonable will use the money to hire, expand R&D, and reach out to industry leaders for partnerships.