Sylvera raises €50.6M to become the truth source in carbon markets; here’s how

Sylvera, a company that develops machine learning-based tools to track the performance of carbon offsets, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $57M (approximately €50.64M) in a Series B round of funding.

The round was led by Balderton Capital with participation from existing investors Index Ventures, Insight Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Speedinvest, Seedcamp, and LocalGlobe. 

New investors Fidelity Strategic Ventures, Bain & Company, and 9Yards Capital also participated in this round.

Daniel Waterhouse, Partner at Balderton Capital, says, “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,” adds Waterhouse.

The carbon ratings and intelligence company

Founded in 2020 by Allister Furey and Sam Gill, Sylvera enables businesses and governments to invest in carbon credits while securely reporting on their impact.

The company delivers ratings and statistics analysing climate action investments, including carbon credits, by combining technology with carbon measuring methodology. This allows organisations to confidently achieve their net zero goal and move towards societal net zero. 

Furey says, “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,” adds Furey.

Sylvera develops software to impartially and precisely assess carbon initiatives that collect, eliminate, or avoid emissions in order to assist organisations in ensuring they are making effective investments.

The company uses technology and climate science to build and test rigorous, all-encompassing procedures to rate projects and produce data.

Capital utilisation

Sylvera says it will use the funds to further build its platform to include new data and information about carbon credits and how that sheds light on companies’ plans and genuine progress against their net-zero targets.

The funds will also support the company to scale its technical capabilities and grow the engineering and product teams.

Erik Mostenicky, Principal at Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, says, “Sylvera’s trusted and unbiased data solves a critical need for asset managers by helping them to better evaluate net zero plans of investee companies across the globe.”

“Sylvera’s unique data platform also enables the creation of new sustainable investment products and educates investors about the quality of carbon offsets.”

“The institutionalisation of carbon markets is necessary to help corporates and investors achieve their net zero targets and we believe Sylvera will be a key driver in facilitating this,” adds Mostenicky.

Recent growth and developments

This fundraising comes at a time when Sylvera expands into the US and establishes a local presence in New York.

With New York serving as a worldwide centre for financial markets, Sylvera says it will be able to integrate with the financial services infrastructure and expand its network of business partners.

Currently, 12 employees are employed by the firm in the US, but the number will double by year’s end.

Since January 2022, Sylvera says it has witnessed a sevenfold increase in its number of customers, adding companies including large financial services providers, infrastructure suppliers, and sovereign governments.

Recently, Serge Kruppa, who oversaw technical responsibilities throughout critical business units at Checkout.com and Twilio, joined the company’s executive team.