Heidi Lindvall - Pale Blue Dot

What Nature-Tech focussed challenge areas are you most excited about and why?

• Risk and dependency - Helping corporates in understanding their reliance on nature risk and dependencies, and for them to be able to quantify those in $ value terms. Startups that can help quantify the impact of our food systems on Nature are also exciting.

• Natural solutions to carbon removal: For example, seaweed being used as a carbon sink. There are questions about what type of these solutions are VC fundable and will deliver required returns but there are lots of exciting solutions emerging.

• Fungi - it's such an amazing, magical world and I’m interested in fungal discovery platforms where we can really try to figure out that, what materials, what ingredients, what chemicals can be replaced by fungi.

What Nature-Tech start-ups are you most excited about and why?

• Nala: Using existing data to help corporates understand nature risk and dependencies. Helping corporates quantify the extent of their interactions with nature to support nature-positive business decisions.

• Pivotal: Pioneering ways to better measure biodiversity – affordably, efficiently, accurately, and at scale. The improved biodiversity is turned into tradable assets, creating a way for people to invest in the restoration of nature across the world.

Xavier Lorphelin - Serena

What Nature-Tech focussed challenge areas are you most excited about and why?

• Monitoring, Reporting, Verification - This is the area we see most activity. We are specifically looking for solutions with a clear go to market and differentiating method to collect or deliver outputs from data. We’re particularly excited about those helping corporates and buyers understand that biodiversity loss is more than just a regulation issue.

• Water - Water plays a critical role in all our lives yet its management is centralised and owned by one or two operators in each country leading to significant inefficiency. I’m interested in start-ups who can drive inefficiency out of water management systems, particularly those developing local solutions driving decentralisation like what we’ve seen in the energy sector. 

What Nature-Tech start-ups are you most excited about and why?

• CarbonFarm - monitors practices and emissions with AI and satellite images, handles carbon-credits certification and brokers credits. They are starting with Rice, representing 50% of crop-related emissions, which can be halved at no cost by adopting proven sustainable irrigation techniques. 

• Notable mentions: The Land Banking Group, Pivotal, Nature Metrics, NatCap, MosaicEarth

Lena Thiede - Planet A Ventures

What Nature-Tech focussed challenge areas are you most excited about and why?

• I am looking out for companies going beyond tackling reporting requirements, leading to nature positive gains, channelling capital into preserving and restoring natural ecosystems.

What Nature-Tech start-ups are you most excited about and why?

• I am excited about The Landbanking Group, founded by Martin Stuchtey who previously founded Systemiq and Sonja Stuchtey, to make ecosystem services investible and bring nature onto the balance sheets. 

• GoodCarbon is pioneering a platform for Nature-based Solutions, connecting projects, investors, and companies. They offer high-quality carbon credits with wide-ranging biodiversity and community benefits, mainly in the Blue Economy.

• Mozaic Earth is ground-truthing nature data at scale, bringing local communities into the equation.

George Darrah – Systemiq Capital

What Nature-Tech focussed challenge areas are you most excited about and why?

• Political Will - Biodiversity Net Gain: Instantaneously created an enormous market for nature restoration and the need to prove that restoration happened. My hope is it will prove that this stuff can be done at a cost that isn't prohibitive and regulation will be taken up by other countries 

• Technology - eDNA:  Integrating existing eDNA datasets with other sources of data. It will produce remarkable insights on biodiversity presence, absence, relative abundance 

• Habitat - Ocean: We have limited granular, benthic, data in the ocean. Of what we have mapped, It's terrible quality.  I think there's something really interesting there around highly granular, low-cost mapping of firstly, coral reefs, but any kind of accessible marine environment. 

What Nature-Tech start-ups are you most excited about and why?

• NatureMetrics: Much cheaper, higher accuracy and better customer experience to get high-quality biodiversity data. Enable corporates to gain regulatory license to operate for new operations whilst removing overhead of on-the-ground consultant teams.

• BaseCamp: Building a foundational model for biology, based upon acquiring and curating the world’s largest database of protein found in nature. And then ensuring that the custodians of the ecosystems in which this genetic wealth resides are compensated fairly.  

• Invasive Species Corp: Founded to develop and market bio-based solutions to control invasive species. Invasive species have caused more than $2 trillion in damage (more than $420 billion annually) and are considered the second largest contributor to the earth’s significant decline in biodiversity, right behind land-use alteration.

Piotr Bukanski - Beringea

 What Nature-Tech focussed challenge areas are you most excited about and why?

• Bringing geospatial data on asset level into play: Biodiversity is a very local issue, which often requires local, granular answers. Today, there are no scalable ways to incorporate location data into large data sets, and use of satellites could help address that point. Geospatial data is not enough on its own. Specifically on corporate side, there are still number of fundamental challenges given a lack of information around individual site locations of the supply chain of corporates, a blocker to comprehensive nature impacts.

What Nature-Tech start-ups are you most excited about and why?

• Iceberg Data Labs - Iceberg Data Lab (“IDL”) provides biodiversity and climate data solutions to financial institutions and helps them develop metrics and tools to report and manage the biodiversity impact of their portfolios. IDL uses the most refined, proprietary input-output model, with more granular assumptions than popular EXIOBASE. It also covers upstream and downstream Scope 3.

Antony Yousefian – TFT.VC

What Nature-Tech focussed challenge areas are you most excited about and why? 

• Nature Intelligence: We need a stronger understanding of nature's resources, how they change over time and its impact on the economy. We are seeking companies whose business models encourage the collection of primary data on nature and then provide valuable insights to users. The business model for us is crucial to accelerating our understanding at a faster pace.

• Accepting Nature’s Complexity: With the advancements in AI, we might be at an inflexion point for NatureTech. While much of the focus today is on using AI for time-saving tasks in consumer applications, I am particularly excited about the recent advancements in AI and the increased computing power being used to understand nature. For example, one of our portfolio companies has reduced their product development cycle from almost a year to just weeks. 

• Nature’s Mutualisms: Additionally, we are looking into discovering intellectual property in nature, such as the mutualistic relationship between species like mycelium and algae. In some cases, this symbiosis can result in a greater output than the sum of its parts, creating fats, proteins, and structures. 

What Nature-Tech start-ups are you most excited about and why?

• Soil Health to Human Health: We have been investing in nature through targeting soil health. It's well-known that improving soil health has multiple environmental and human health benefits. For instance, food grown in healthy soils tends to have higher quality and nutrient density. The technology that connects nature's value to human health is fascinating, and we see a significant economic opportunity in this area. We have and are investing in what we call the "digital infrastructure" related to this, such as Edacious, which enables food producers to measure and compare the nutrient density of the foods they produce.

• Tech Startups in Pollination: With the ongoing loss of biodiversity, pollination technologies are now proving to have significant economic value. Our research and experience show that these companies are adding considerable value per hectare, which is a metric we closely consider when evaluating opportunities. Notable companies in this field include Beehero, Olombria, and BloomX.

• Epi-Genomics Start-ups: While gene expression has been extensively researched in humans, the market has not widely applied this technology to animals or even plants. With the decreasing costs of sequencing and computing, technology companies that provide insights into nature's impact on gene expression are uncovering a deeper understanding of how to enhance yields, humans and ultimately, economic returns. We see this as an exciting area within the Naturetech space, which we are doubling down. One company we admire in this realm is called Anter Bio.

Edward Thorne – Sand River

What Nature-Tech focussed challenge areas are you most excited about and why?

• Technologies that value and incentivise better land use -  The land use value chain is interesting and has excellent investment potential. It includes everything from helping land stewards understand what they're managing, to enabling global financial institutions to deploy capital into those markets and achieve market based returns.

• The valuation, protection and restoration of nature - This includes technologies that help determine the economic value of ecosystem services, and that enable new ways to operate within our planetary boundaries. 

What Nature-Tech start-ups are you most excited about and why?

All of our portfolio companies but to call out a few:

• WaterBear: An impact media company telling positive stories about how humanity interacts with nature and focusing on the everyday activist.

• The Landbanking group: Developing the framework to enable investment in natural capital to be an asset on the balance sheet. Enabling companies to develop, manage and market Nature Equity and incentivise the restoration of biodiversity, soil health, carbon and water cycles.  

• Unwritten:  Provides investors and corporates with transition intelligence on the financial materiality of climate change, physical and environmental risk enabling better decision making and risk analysis on single stocks and entire portfolios. 

• Maltento:  Producing refined functional ingredients for the pet and aquaculture markets from the Black Soldier Fly which replace traditional animal protein inputs. 

Iván Markman - Self

What Nature-Tech focussed challenge areas are you most excited about and why?

• Scaling solutions: finding better ways to bring technology, natural assets and financial solutions to scale the deployment of Nature-based solutions.

• Driving end to end adoption throughout supply chains: providing better solutions to help all of the players (large and small) understand and adopt climate-forward practices.

• Driving engagement and actions at the individual level: driving behavior change in individuals, families, communities, etc.

What Nature-Tech start-ups are you most excited about and why?

• Overall, we need many, many shots on goal as the transformation required is so significant around the world. Fortunately, there is a growing number of catalysts that support increasing formation and growth of companies that tackle the area such as incubators/venture studios, accelerators, government programs, and a growing set of capital solutions across equity and credit classes. 

• When it comes to scaling solutions related to Nature-based assets, I am excited by what companies such as Ponterra, Cambium, Kodama and Charm Industrial are doing, to name a few. 

• There are lots of companies tackling various supply chains to drive climate forward action in various industry verticals (e.g. SBP) and horizontally (e.g. Cloverly) that I like.

• Similarly, there are various approaches that are interesting and effective in different ways in activating individuals. On this front I like companies like Elements who take an employee-centric view, Pique Action tackling it from a media angle, and Ecosafi who change how people cook. 

Laura Ortiz Montemayor – Regenera Ventures Fund

What Nature-Tech focussed challenge areas are you most excited about and why?

• Evolving away from Supply Chains that commoditize landscapes into value webs that diversify and make landscapes resilient: I am particularly excited about start-ups and cooperatives focussed on addressing degenerative management of productive ecosystems into regenerative management. One great example is Cacao that is native to southern Mexico. 

• Helping to recognise the value of Cooperatives and remuneration of local land stewards: The producers and real custodians of cacao, coffee and so many other products are earning very little. I’m interested in opportunities to find a way to appreciate their value and diversify their revenue streams. This is critical to help them transition from labor to shareholders in a commercial company. I've also found start-ups focussed in helping those cooperatives diversify their revenues such as through carbon capture or biodiversity credits.

What Nature-Tech start-ups are you most excited about and why?

• We are looking to invest in 12-15 projects across Mexico focusing on the transition to regenerative practices, ecosystem regeneration, and climate adaptation in agriculture, forestry, eco-tourism, aquaculture and nature-based solutions. In the process of investing in regeneration we also want to regenerate investment paradigms to build real interdependent partnerships for long term collective abundance. 

📩 Feel free to send us deals, announcements, or anything else at [email protected] . Have a great week ahead! 

Written by Ollie. Drop me a message!