Tallinn-based Arbonics, a climate tech startup, announced on Friday that it has secured €5.5M in a Seed round of funding from NordicNinja, Plural, and Tilia Impact Ventures.
The latest funding round takes the total raised by the Estonian company to €7.3M.
The latest investment will allow Arbonics to expand its product portfolio, grow its team, and cover 50 per cent of European forests next year.
The funding will enable Arbonics to conduct further impact assessments on biodiversity, expand its team, and launch a scientific advisory board in collaboration with leading scientists.
Arbonics CEO Kristjan Lepik says, “With this recent funding, we’re poised to make a significant impact, not just as a business but as a catalyst for meaningful change. This year has been tough on the carbon markets, and there are concerns around the Voluntary Carbon Market, but it’s exactly what it needed to mature. It proved just how important it is for the market to be more transparent and proven for forest carbon projects, and at Arbonics, that’s what we’re building. Our tech stack is designed to elevate the nature-based removals industry, setting a new standard for what can be achieved when forests and technology work in harmony.”
Arbonics: Building scalable forest carbon removal platform
Founded in 2022 by Kristjan Lepik and Lisett Luik, Arbonics is building the highest-quality forest carbon platform to fight climate change.
The company does this by developing a unique data and science-based tool for remotely calculating the suitability and impact of afforestation projects.
The Arbonics platform combines over 30 layers of data – from on-the-ground sensors to soil readings and satellite imagery – with in-house ecology and forestry expertise to remotely and accurately calculate the carbon removal potential of land in European countries.
It can determine everything from which trees are needed to reach the land’s potential to establishing their carbon impact in seconds.
The company says it has already unlocked new revenue sources for 4,000 landowners by analysing 200,000+ hectares and planting four million+ trees across multiple European markets.
By the end of 2024, it plans to cover 50 per cent of Europe’s forest.
The platform has strategic partnerships with institutions like Swedbank, which launched a product with Arbonics to finance the planting of new forests.
The investors
Founded as a Japanese-European joint venture between JBIC IG Partners and BaltCap, NordicNinja is a founder and operator-led VC fund helping startups solve society’s hardest problems with the most innovative tech.
Rainer Sternfeld, Managing Partner at NordicNinja, says, “Arbonics is exactly the kind of innovative, scalable, and sustainable solution we look for at NordicNinja. The company has the technology, market understanding, vision, and team to make a significant difference. We see Arbonics as having the potential to conquer the market in this crucial sector. That’s why we’ve bet strongly on their and our planet’s future.”
Plural is an early-stage platform set up by experienced founders and operators for founders on a mission to change the world through technology.
Taavet Hinrikus, Partner at Plural, says, “While many new projects are being started on the technological carbon removal, those solutions take time. A luxury we do not have. If we take technologies and empower nature with them as Arbonics does, scalable solutions can happen already this decade.”
01
Empowering Ukrainian Startups: Highlights from the PowerUp Ukraine 2024 Conference