Nori Raises $7M Series A Investment As It Scales Its Groundbreaking Carbon Removal Marketplace
M13 leads round, with Toyota Ventures joining as a strategic investor and participation from previous investors
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nori, which enables global engagement for mitigating and reversing climate change through carbon removal via its marketplace for carbon removals on Ethereum, announced that it has closed a $7M Series A round led by M13, with Toyota Ventures joining and participation from Placeholder.
“To date, the carbon offset industry has struggled with endemic problems including double claiming of credits,” said Paul Gambill, CEO, Nori. “The immutable nature of the blockchain establishes transparency for credits, providing rewards for carbon removal to its community and establishing significant opportunity for our development team, which will be doubling in 2022 as we hire aggressively.”
Nori focuses on carbon removal rather than emissions reductions or avoidances. Its innovative marketplace provides substantial financial rewards to farmers, who use regenerative farming practices that involve soil carbon sequestration. The 10 farmers in its marketplace have already been paid more than $1M USD for their carbon removal credits. Soil sequestration is the first of Nori’s carbon removal offerings, with additional methodologies coming to market in the future.
Nori solves a pervasive accounting problem in the carbon offset industry by minting their carbon removals on Ethereum as NFTs. The company has already attracted mainstream attention, most recently partnering with Julian Lennon’s White Feather Foundation, which is using a portion of the proceeds from his auction of Beatles iconography, including Paul McCartney’s handwritten notes for Hey Jude, to purchase carbon removal from Nori.
“There is no problem more urgent than what Nori is tackling: carbon removal. We’ve been looking to invest in companies that leverage blockchains to meet real-world needs and are proud to back Nori who is both removing carbon and cleaning up carbon-offset accounting with the Ethereum blockchain,” said M13 Partner Latif Peracha. “Nori’s marketplace is proven; farmers are getting paid for removing carbon with regenerative farming, and corporations, SMBs and NFT companies alike are turning to Nori to verify their efforts to run their businesses sustainably.”
The upcoming launch of Nori’s token, NORI, will solve another problem in the carbon offset industry: establishing the true price of a tonne of carbon dioxide. While developing the NORI token, Nori has already established a dedicated community around carbon removal that connects regenerative farmers, large businesses, crypto-native NFT artists and cryptoenthusiasts, NFT marketplace partners such as Rarible, and anyone hoping to take meaningful climate action.
“At Toyota Ventures, our Climate Fund focuses on investing in early-stage startups that can have real impact on carbon neutrality, while delivering value to its customers,” said Lisa Coca, Climate Fund partner at Toyota Ventures. “Nori is pioneering a much needed step-change in the carbon removal industry by building a transparent marketplace and we’re excited to back the company in its mission to ensure that large-scale carbon reductions come to fruition.”
Nori is a blockchain-backed carbon removal marketplace based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 2017, Nori is on a mission to reverse climate change by removing billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. Currently, Nori sources carbon removal by supporting farmers adopting regenerative agriculture projects that are sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere. In the future, Nori will enable various methods of carbon removal. Nori provides transparency and protects against double counting by minting their carbon removals on the Ethereum blockchain.
Visit nori.com.
Contacts
Media:
Dave Donohue
nori@strangebrewstrategies.com
