Six-figure seed funding for forest startup Ocell

The two founders of Foodora and Kaia Health, Manuel Thurner and Konstantin Mehl, are participating in the round. They want to use the money to expand the team.

Munich-based AI startup Ocell has closed its seed funding round with a six-figure sum. VC Better Ventures and business angels Julius Göllner as well as Andreas Kupke from Finanzcheck and the two founders of Foodora and Kaia Health, Manuel Thurner and Konstantin Mehl, are participating in the round. In addition, Ocell will receive another 500,000 euros from a research funding program.

Ocell has been developing an app for digital forestry since 2018 and wants to help forest managers to manage more efficiently and sustainably. "Decisions are currently based on data that is sometimes up to ten years old," says co-founder Christian Decher. "Measures and their status, as well as information related to geographically referenced data, such as tree inventories, are still handled on paper by fax, mail or phone, with great error-proneness and extra effort. Ocell accelerates the flow of information between all stakeholders."

Ocell has its own microlight aircraft that take aerial photographs of the forests. For the evaluation of the forest areas, Ocell relies on artificial intelligence. "This starts with the 3D measurement of the forest, runs through the location of each individual tree including its height and state of health to statistical statements about the bound CO2," says co-founder David Dohmen.

"Preserving our planet and thus saving the forest are matters close to our hearts. We are convinced that Ocell will sustainably improve the world with its ecological impact and are very happy to support the ambitious founding team on their journey", says Tina Dreimann from Better Ventures. Investor Manuel Thurner is excited about the start-up's success: "I am convinced that Ocell is uniquely positioned in the market with its Dynamic Forest software and the further development of its machine learning models, and that the team is poised for massive success."

Ocell is now looking to further develop the product and grow the team. The founders are already planning further: "Through our platform, we will also work with CO2 certifiers in the future, who need our meaningful data from the forest. Through simulations of forest growth, we will enable optimized action, harvesting and planting recommendations in the future."