Amsterdam’s Overstory bags €3.3M to analyse Earth’s vegetation to prevent wildfires and power outages; here’s how

Overstory (previously 20tree.ai), an Amsterdam-based global vegetation intelligence platform, announced that it has closed a $3.9M (approx €3.3M) Seed+ round, led by CapitalT and Moxxie Ventures.

Moxxie Ventures: What you need to know

Based out of San Francisco, Moxxie Ventures is an early-stage fund that invests in founders who make life and work better.

“Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increasing number of power outages and wildfires caused by climate change. We’re proud to invest in Overstory, which provides businesses with greater visibility, risk analysis, and optimization recommendations for vegetation management,” says Katie Jacobs Stanton, Founder and General Partner at Moxxie Ventures

CapitalT: What you need to know

Based out of Amsterdam, CapitalT is seed-stage VC that invests in tech companies that solve real problems with AI or have a strong data component and have international potential. 

The VC invests in companies in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Germany.

“We are very bullish about the problem that Overstory is tackling and believe the Overstory team is perfectly suited to do this. They are hands down one of the smartest teams in this space,” says Janneke Niessen, Co-Founder of CapitalT.

Fund utilisation

The latest funding will enable Overstory to continue building its SaaS platform that helps prevent forest fires, deforestation, power outages to create a more sustainable environment. 

The company will also use the funds to double down the usage of machine learning on satellite data and expand sales operations in the US. 

“The U.S. expansion comes on top of a base of big European utilities with a market cap of €28.7B, including Red Eléctrica de España and EDP,” says the company in the press release. 

What is the problem?

According to NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center), an average of 7 million acres have been burned every year for the past decade in the US.

In California, power lines have caused more than 1,500 wildfires in the past eight years, including the deadliest blaze in the state’s history.

As per a report from Los Angeles Times, the state’s largest utility will spend about $1.4B this year removing more than 300,000 trees and pruning an additional 1.1M.

The risks are growing for utilities since they don’t have access to accurate, real-time vegetation data at scale. 

Here’s where Overstory comes into play. 

Overstory: What you need to know

Founded by Indra den Bakker, Overstory applies Artificial Intelligence (AI) to high-resolution satellite imagery to provide real-time analytics of natural resources.

The insights offered on the quantity and quality of natural resources help improve decision-making by electric utility companies, forestry companies, and NGOs.

The company’s platform identifies the location, height, health, and species of trees. It then alerts customers on where the riskiest trees are and need to be cut down or pruned because they are at risk of growing into or falling onto the power lines.