Antler backs Dutch startup Carble in €300k round to reward deforestation-free farming

Noordwijk, The Netherlands-based Carble, a climate fintech startup, announced on Tuesday that it has raised €300k in a funding round led by Antler, the global early-stage VC, with participation from angel investors.  

The fund also includes grants from the German government’s GIZ Coffee Innovation Fund and the European Space Agency’s Business Incubation Centre.

The company says it will use the funds to launch its technology in the market and expand its operations. The capital will also help Carble to start working on their next fundraising round to double down on strong current customer demand.

Carble: What you need to know

Founded by Sander Reuderink, Noura Hanna and Lodewijk van der Meer in 2021, Carble is fighting climate change by financially compensating farmers for preventing deforestation through the combination of manual field measurements, earth observation data, and cash transfers.

“Eight of the ten largest coffee brands and all major cocoa brands have announced their goals to significantly reduce their negative impact on the climate. Yet there are no solutions that effectively reduce deforestation and address poverty amongst farmers – two of the largest sustainability challenges these brands face,” says Reuderink, co-founder and CEO of Carble. 

Through its proprietary software platform, the Dutch company collects satellite data on carbon storage in agroforestry farms, processes it through a machine learning algorithm, and presents the data to brands in an actionable format so they can reward deforestation-free farming at scale. 

Carble uses Sentinel-2 multispectral satellite imagery and spaceborne laser altimetry data from NASA’s GEDI to get satellite data. 

According to Carble, this approach helps brands to decarbonise their supply chain rather than using offsetting projects that do not change anything in the brands’ internal operations. 

Also, the platform directly contributes to reducing poverty in tropical commodity farmers, thereby giving brands double the social and environmental impact per dollar. 

The payments to farmers are made by tropical commodity buyers like coffee and cocoa brands.

Reuderinke adds, “With the Carble platform, we aim to avoid 1000 megaton of CO2 emissions, protect 1 million hectares of tropical forest and generate €1B of additional income for 1 million tropical commodity farmers by 2035.”

Investor

Founded in Singapore in 2017, Antler builds and invests in the “defining technology companies of tomorrow.” The company has helped create and invested in over 600 startups across various industries and technologies. It is on a mission to support over 6,000 companies by 2030.

Antler has offices globally across most major entrepreneurial hubs, such as London, Berlin, Bangalore, Stockholm, Oslo, New York, Singapore, and Sydney.

Youri Doeleman, a Partner at Antler, says, “At Antler, we work with exceptional founders from day zero to create startups with significant growth potential. The Carble team brings together a unique set of backgrounds and skills to the problem they are solving. They have everything from brands and the farmer’s livelihood to technology. The team has impressed us with their high ambitions and execution focus. We are excited about their impact on addressing climate change across the tropical commodity industry.”