The founder of WeWork has raised $70 million for a blockchain startup focused on carbon.
Billionaire Adam Neumann and his wife Rebekah are among the founders of Flowcarbon, which intends to tokenise carbon credits and build an on-chain market.
Neumann was ousted as CEO of the co-working giant three years ago when a failed flotation highlighted serious issues of governance at the company.
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 tokenising 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. Flowcarbon says its protocol allows project developers to 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, revitalise and protect nature,” said Dana Gibber, CEO and co-founder.
“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.”
Flowcarbon says its Goddess Nature Token (GNT) is backed by a bundle of certified credits issued over the last five years from nature-based projects, tracking popular corporate demand criteria and offering widespread exposure to corporate-quality credits.
Each token can be retired as an offset, sold, used for borrowing and lending, or redeemed for an underlying real-world credit.
“The carbon market is extremely opaque and we believe demand for offsets is rapidly outpacing the speed at which supply can be increased, especially for nature-based projects,” said Arianna Simpson, general partner at a16z crypto.
“Tokenisation is an obvious solution. We’ve explored the on-chain carbon space extensively and feel confident that Flowcarbon’s team and model are best in breed.”
The company has made significant partnership announcements including a collaboration with the Centrifuge protocol, which will unlock the debt markets for carbon project developers, as well as its collaboration with the Layer 1 blockchain Celo, to provide $10 million of GNT to offset Celo’s emissions. Flowcarbon’s GNT token will launch on Celo.