Carbonfuture closes seed financing round

The Freiburg-based company has raised $2.8 million. Among the investors is Carsten Maschmeyer's early-stage fund Seed+Speed.

The start-up Carbonfuture offers an online marketplace for trading so-called carbon sink credits and has now convinced investors with it: according to Gründerszene in their seed financing round. The round is led by venture capitalist Übermorgen Ventures from Zurich, and also includes the Seed+Speed fund of investor Carsten Maschmeyer and Wi Ventures from Mainz. Carbonfuture plans to use the money to further develop its platform and expand its team. In addition, the turnover should be two million euros in 2022, as founder Andreas Hölzl stated to Gründerszene. For this year, he expects sales of 600,000 euros.

Carbonfuture wants to bring together what does not fit at first glance: Via Blockchain, certificates are to be issued to companies that not only operate in a climate-neutral manner, but actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Blockchain itself has a very high energy consumption, but the benefits outweigh according to Hölzl: "Blockchain is important for the documentation of sinks and their trade to prevent double counting," the founder tells Gründerszene. This prevents double counting of CO2 certificates by companies.

In 2019, the idea for Carbonfuture came up, and the startup launched its offering in early 2020. The Freiburg-based company earns money from a fee in the trade of the certificates.