CarbonChain – an AI-fueled carbon accounting platform that is using granular data to provide end-to-end visibility into the carbon footprint of a company’s supply chain – announced its $10 million Series A funding round co-led by Union Square Ventures and Voyager Ventures. And CarbonChain will use the funding round to build new carbon accounting and reporting products, expand its customer base in the most carbon-intensive value chains (manufacturing, commodities, and heavy industry), and grow its team to meet increasing demand.
The global merchandise trade market exceeds more than $20 trillion a year and the supply chains that feed that trade are responsible for 60% of global emissions. And despite global demand for quantifying and reducing carbon emissions to meet net zero by 2050, many organizations have been having a hard time accurately measuring and reporting their carbon footprint.
CarbonChain provides companies and financial institutions with an accurate accounting of Scope 3 and supply chain emissions. And the World Economic Forum estimates Scope 3 emissions make up as much as 90% of a company’s carbon footprint. Plus CarbonChain incorporates data from the point of resource extraction, from raw materials, all the way through to the point of consumption to create emissions insight across the entire supply chain.
Through a verified and validated methodology and expansive database covering 80% of global emissions, CarbonChain enables carbon traceability, product carbon footprinting, and the identification of real-time reduction opportunities. And CarbonChain has delivered tremendous value to companies with complex supply chains. By accurately quantifying the emissions intensity of globally-traded commodities, CarbonChain provides clear value to traders, manufacturers, and financiers who recognize the liabilities inherent in emissions-intensive supply chains, and see the business benefits of improving them.
Major regulations from the U.S. and European Union will only accelerate the value CarbonChain provides while also increasing the demand from every major buyer and seller of emissions-intensive goods and services.
KEY QUOTES:
“CarbonChain helps climate-critical sectors take action by filling the data gap for supply chain emissions tracking with accuracy and granularity. Our latest investment round kicks off a big year for CarbonChain: we are hiring for 30 new roles, and opening a New York office to better support the North American market. We are excited to expand our customer base and help move the global economy closer to net zero.”
- Adam Hearne, CarbonChain CEO and co-founder
“CarbonChain has a team of passionate, expert engineers, data scientists, and sales leaders dedicated to tackling the world’s largest sources of GHG emissions. Their carbon accounting platform is becoming the go-to solution for leading companies in the commodities, metals manufacturing, trade finance, and logistics industries. We’re excited to have co-led this investment round enabling CarbonChain to continue expanding its customer base through these critical supply chains.”
- Rebecca Kaden, Union Square Ventures General Partner
“Integrating GHG transparency into the supply chains of thyssenkrupp is critical. By joining forces with suppliers like mills and using CarbonChain’s leading technical solution, the industry can start to build high-fidelity emissions transparency, so that decarbonization decisions can be made at the supplier, product, and company levels. Engaging with our suppliers will help us prepare our supply chains for reporting and carbon pricing regulation, develop meaningful climate goals, and support our ongoing policy engagement.”
- Jörg Heiles, CEO Operating Unit Materials, thyssenkrupp Materials Services Eastern Europe
“The climate emergency is paramount for many of the Bank’s global trade commodity clients, helping them address these challenges is, therefore, one of our main priorities. In this respect, our partnership with CarbonChain further contributes to our clients’ decarbonization journey, in a very pragmatic and innovative way using technology, and to Societe Generale’s strong commitments to positive transformations of the world.”
- Deia Markova, Head of Trade and Sustainable Commodity Finance and Sustainability Ambassador at Societe Generale in Switzerland
“Enabling our clients to understand the emissions footprint of their transactions through CarbonChain’s reliable, robust, and transparent methodologies has been a distinct value-add to Macquarie’s Global Carbon business. It has allowed us to execute a number of landmark carbon-offset commodity transactions.”
- David Schmidt, Senior Vice President in Macquarie’s Global Carbon group, a division within the Commodities and Global Markets business
