Nature-based carbon elimination startup Chestnut Carbon has raised $160 million in Sequence B financing, the corporate informed TechCrunch. The startup buys marginal and degraded farmland, vegetation them with native bushes, and harvests the ensuing carbon credit.
Carbon credit have develop into a scorching commodity, particularly amongst tech corporations trying to offset skyrocketing emissions brought about partly by the breakneck enlargement of knowledge facilities serving cloud and AI prospects.
The brand new spherical included funding from Canada Pension Plan Funding Board, Cloverlay, and DBL Companions together with unnamed college endowments, household places of work, funds of funds, and different institutional traders.
For Chestnut Carbon, the $160 million is definitely a considerably modest sum. When the corporate was based, personal fairness agency Kimmeridge capitalized it by pledging as much as $200 million. The agency sometimes invests in oil and fuel corporations, however managing associate Ben Dell noticed a chance to stake a declare within the rising carbon credit score market.
To make it occur, he acquired Forest Carbon Works, a startup based by Kyle Holland that helped households handle their forests to promote carbon credit. Holland continued with Chestnut, the place he’s presently chief product officer.
With Chestnut, the staff expanded their focus to incorporate initiatives developed by the corporate, not simply managing current forests.
Chestnut presently owns greater than 35,000 acres of marginal and degraded farmland and pasture within the southeastern United States. A part of the purpose of the fundraise is to develop Chestnut’s holdings considerably. The startup is hoping to increase its carbon credit score capability to 100 million metric tons by 2030, which would require tons of of 1000’s of acres to be remodeled again into forests.
Final month, Chestnut made a down fee on that concentrate on with the sale of 7 million carbon credits to Microsoft. (One carbon credit score is value one metric ton of carbon.) The 25-year deal will assist Chestnut rehabilitate 60,000 acres in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. Chestnut makes use of Gold Customary to certify its carbon credit for 100 years.
The brand new funding spherical ought to assist the startup dramatically increase its operations. Whereas there’s loads of demand for high-quality carbon credit right this moment, Chestnut’s purpose of 100 million metric tons represents a fraction of a % of annual carbon emissions, which hit 37.4 billion metric tons in 2023, according to the IEA.
Nonetheless, if Chestnut can safe its foothold within the carbon credit score market, afforestation and reforestation maintain nice potential to rein within the results of local weather warming air pollution.
A study in 2019 discovered that the world can help 2.2 billion acres extra forest than it has right this moment. As soon as these forests matured, they’d maintain 205 billion metric tons of carbon, or a few quarter of the carbon presently within the ambiance.