London-based carbon offset ratings provider Sylvera raises $7.8 million, seeks to bring new levels of transparency to the market

London’s carbon offset ratings provider Sylvera has raised $5.8 million in a seed funding round led by Index Ventures and saw participation from all existing investors including Seedcamp, Speedinvest and Revent. Angel Investors include, “existing and former CEOs of NYSE, Thomson Reuters, Citibank and IHS Markit”. The additional $2 million arrives via a research contract with Innovate UK.

The company is slated to use the funding to further its proprietary methods for assessing carbon performance. Additionally, Sylvera has announced new partnerships with Dr. Antonio Ferraz of UCLA and NASA-JPL and Prof. Mat Disney at University College London to dive deeper into the usage of space-based tracking via Lidar technology.

Sylvera uses geospatial data, machine learning, and proprietary climate data to create a transparent assessment of carbon offset projects. To break that down: they use satellite imagery, run it via a bunch of algorithms that analyse what’s going on in the imagery, and then generate a standardised rating for the project under the microscope.

“We founded Sylvera because we believed that in order to reach net zero, the world will require a well-functioning and scalable carbon offset market. Such a market will only work if all participants can trust in the projects they are trading,” says Sylvera CEO Dr. Allister Furey. “Currently, carbon offsetting is a very opaque market with little independent assurance available to guarantee an offset has taken place. The market also lacks the transparency companies need to compare projects globally across different standards.”