UK-based Altruistiq bags €17.6M to help companies accelerate decarbonisation

Altruistiq, a London-based climate SaaS startup, announced on Monday that it has secured £15M in a seed round of funding, making it one of the largest for software in Europe and amongst the top 10 best-funded climate software companies globally. 

The round was led by VC firm Molten Ventures with participation from Norrsken, and  angel investors, including Greg Jackson, Mudassir Sheikha and Siraj Khaliq, Sir Ian Cheshire, and Nicolaj Reffstrup.

Altruistiq says the new capital will help it change the carbon reporting standard from a “carbon accounting and credits” model to a “carbon abatement” model.

Saif Hameed, CEO and founder of Altruistiq, says, “We’ve seen a big shift towards businesses embracing the ‘carbon accounting’ space. While this is a helpful tailwind, inaccurate data sets and a lack of granular calculation lead to generic emission factors that can leave organisations open to charges of greenwashing. We, at Altruistiq, are focused on giving businesses the data engineering tools to better understand their actual impact whilst also enhancing their credibility on sustainability.”

Altruistiq: What you need to know

Founded by Saif Hameed, Altruistiq enables large enterprises with complex supply chains to measure, manage and share their environmental impact. 

The company says that it is a process that goes deeper than simply a commitment to carbon offsets through identifying CO2 emissions and reduction initiatives. 

The UK company works with large, often complex businesses in the retail, food, FMCG, logistics, and fashion industries. 

UK recipe box provider Gousto uses data generated by Altruistiq to tackle decarbonisation on two fronts: suppliers’ farming methods and the mix of recipes and ingredients it sells. 

According to Altruistiq, Gousto is surveying its suppliers to better understand their carbon footprint and is looking to see how it can use its platform to help its suppliers make their practices more sustainable.

For example, Gousto discovered that sourcing tomatoes from Seville had a lower carbon impact than sourcing from the UK. Such insights help Gousto make informed sourcing and recipe-development decisions.

George Chalmers, Head of Climate at Molten Ventures says, “Altruistiq is already proving the power of its platform which we believe can be the category leader of a rapidly evolving market. There is an increasing need and demand for a carbon abatement solution to go beyond just reporting and Altruistiq is in a strong position to meet those needs.  

Alexander Danielsson, Investment Director at Norrsken VC, says, “At Norrsken VC, we back entrepreneurs who solve the world’s biggest challenges. Altruistiq provides a sustainability platform where corporates can, among other metrics, measure and plan initiatives to abate emissions simply and effectively. Enabling corporates to abate their emissions is the biggest lever to take us to net zero. We are delighted to be partnering up with Saif and the Altruistiq team to solve our climate crisis.”