Green Angel Syndicate was delighted to participate in a $15m injection of funds into its portfolio company NatureMetrics, bringing NatureMetrics’ total funding to $26m to date.
The World Economic Forum (whose annual meeting is taking place this week in Davos) estimates that the world needs to build 2 billion new homes over the next 80 years. This will, of course, have an impact on wildlife and biodiversity, disrupting many ecosystems. DNA-based nature monitoring could enable challenges like this to be met at scale by measuring impact and by informing better decision-making that will reduce that impact.
Nature data requirements are expected to surge as nature becomes the ‘next carbon’ for data disclosure and NatureMetrics is well-positioned to respond to this demand. The company’s new digital SaaS platform will include products to support quantification of net gains on biodiversity and marine health monitoring.
The UK-founded company, which has sold its DNA-based biodiversity monitoring products in more than 80 countries, plans to use the funding to build a series of new digital products to enable its customers to set and monitor long-term targets on nature whilst accelerating its expansion into international markets.
NatureMetrics already runs two eDNA labs in the UK and Canada, which have delivered comprehensive data from soil, freshwater and marine samples on species from bacteria to blue whales. To date, NatureMetrics has served more than 450 clients across the renewable energy, infrastructure, marine water and banking sectors.
This round of funding will enable the NatureMetrics team to combine ecological statistics with machine learning and data visualisation. The investment was led by VC fund 2150 with participation from Ananda Impact Ventures, SWEN Capital Partners’ Blue Ocean and BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund, and follow-on from Green Angel Syndicate, Systemiq Capital and others.
Katie Critchlow, CEO of NatureMetrics said: “For too long society has been failing nature because we haven’t had the tools to set and monitor targets. We want to make biodiversity data simple and easy to understand for decision makers. Our labs and our data engine are making sure biodiversity data is delivered at scale and across the whole tree of life, not just what we can see with our eyes. Our new Nature Intelligence team led by our co-founder Professor Doug Yu will take that complex ‘big data’ on nature and enable good decision making by transforming long lists of species into simple metrics which can be discussed in a boardroom and used to drive better investment, buying and impact mitigation decisions.”
Cam Ross, CEO of Green Angel Syndicate, said: “NatureMetrics is at the cutting edge of expertise in environmental DNA and analytics. Nature-based solutions like this are key to fighting climate change and we are thrilled to be a part of NatureMetrics’ hugely exciting journey.”
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