Carbon Credit Ratings Provider Sylvera Raises $57 Million to Fund U.S. Expansion
Carbon data provider Sylvera announced today that it has raised $57 million in a Series B financing, with proceeds aimed at supporting the company’s expansion into the U.S. market, and to further build out its team and platform.
The funding comes as demand for carbon offset projects and related credits is expected to increase significantly over the next several years, as companies and businesses increasingly launch net zero ambitions, and turn to offsets as a bridge to their own absolute emissions reduction efforts, or to balance difficult to avoid emissions. The unregulated and rapidly growing market faces a series of challenges, however, with market participants unable to differentiate between high and low quality projects with insufficient or inconsistent data to assess the effectiveness of the projects.
Founded in the UK in 2020, Sylvera’s carbon intelligence platform helps organizations evaluate and invest in high quality carbon credits, utilizing proprietary data and machine learning technology to produce comprehensive insights on carbon projects.
Allister Furey, CEO and co-founder of Sylvera, said:
“There is a serious lack of data to demonstrate progress against net zero targets and to prove that carbon emissions are actually being reduced or removed from the atmosphere. This uncertainty has created inaction–Sylvera is changing that. Our technology ensures funding is going to the projects, companies, and countries having maximum climate impact to get the world on track for net zero. In time, this data will create much-needed financial incentives, such as higher share prices and cheaper borrowing, for organisations taking serious net zero action.”
According to the company, proceeds from the financing will be used to support its international expansion into the U.S., with Sylvera also announcing the opening of a local New York office, as well as to build out its platform to include new data and information about carbon credits and to grow its engineering and product teams.
The Series B round was led by venture investor Balderton Capital, and included participation from existing investors Index Ventures, Insight Partners, Bain & Company, Salesforce Ventures, Speedinvest, Seedcamp, and LocalGlobe, as well as new investors Fidelity Strategic Ventures and 9Yards Capital.
Daniel Waterhouse, Partner, Balderton Capital, said:
“There is an urgent need to provide the most accurate and transparent views on the multitude of carbon projects around the world in order for corporations, governments and markets to trust in the carbon credits they are buying and effectively scale their climate contributions and head towards net zero. Sylvera has proven to be the market leader in this emerging field and we are excited to be joining them on the next phase of the journey and their work in accelerating the roll-out of data, tools and software in order to steer a path to reducing damaging climate change.”
The financing follows a $32 million series A funding round last year. Since the prior round, Sylvera said that it has seen a sevenfold growth in its customer base.
Furey and Sylvera co-founder and President Samuel Gill said:
“We launched in the UK in 2020 to help companies meet net zero goals and invest in carbon markets with confidence. Since then we’ve made significant progress in bringing transparency to the carbon markets, showing buyers what to avoid and helping to deploy capital at scale towards genuinely effective projects. In the next phase of our journey, we will bring data and transparency to overall net zero action, creating incentives for the organizations taking action and having real climate impact.”