On-chain Carbon Market Infrastructure Will Help Scale the Voluntary Carbon Market
Flowcarbon, a pioneering climate technology company working to build market infrastructure in the voluntary carbon market (VCM), today announced it has raised a total of $70M in venture capital funding and sale of its carbon-backed token. The funding round was led by a16z crypto and also includes General Catalyst, Samsung Next, Invesco Private Capital, 166 2nd, Sam and Ashley Levinson, Kevin Turen, RSE Ventures, and Allegory Labs. Other participants in the token sale include Fifth Wall, Box Group, and the Celo Foundation.
Flowcarbon’s mission is to drive billions of dollars directly to projects that reduce or remove carbon from the atmosphere by creating the first open protocol for tokenizing live, certified carbon credits from projects around the globe. Demand for carbon credits has surged in recent years among corporations that use them to offset carbon emissions, but the ability to scale the volume of credits available has been limited by the VCM’s opaque and fractured market infrastructure. Through Flowcarbon’s protocol, project developers can immediately access a marketplace of buyers interested in their credits by bringing them onto the blockchain. Buyers are then able to purchase live carbon credits directly from project proponents.
“There are powerful economic incentives to destroy and degrade critical natural landscapes around the world, but the voluntary carbon market is a brilliant financial mechanism that creates a counterbalancing incentive to reforest, revitalize and protect nature,” said Dana Gibber, CEO of Flowcarbon. “We have a big vision and the stakes are high. We are thrilled to be partnering with the most thoughtful investors in the world, who bring a combined expertise in web3 and key market categories including manufacturing, technology, entertainment and real estate,” added Gibber.
Flowcarbon has engaged an extensive group of stakeholders from the voluntary carbon market to inform the company’s tokenization protocol design, optimizing for environmental, financial and structural integrity. Flowcarbon’s first carbon-backed token, called the Goddess Nature Token (GNT), is designed to maximize value and utility for buyers. GNT is backed by a bundle of certified credits issued