AI-powered environmental management software company forward earth has raised €4.5 million in Seed funding.
By embedding environmental management tools into existing business software, forward earth empowers companies to comply with evolving regulations, reduce their environmental impact, and drive sustainability across their operations.
The company is expanding rapidly, with operations in Europe, the United States, and soon Asia. forward earth was co-founded by Cari Davidson, Giuseppe Gentile and Micha Schildmann.
I spoke to forward earth co-founder and CEO Micha Schildmann to find out more.
Before forward earth’s AI-driven software solution, carbon management was a labour-intensive exercise of continuous data collection and calculation. This simply does not scale, as regulatory pressure rises around the world.
Schildmann calls forward earth “the next generation of environmental management software”.
By embedding environmental management into the existing business software of hundreds of thousands of companies, forward earth simplifies the process of data collection, reporting, and regulatory compliance, particularly for businesses facing pressure from new regulations in the EU, UK, and US.
Its flagship product allows companies to remain compliant despite an ever-growing number of strict environmental regulations, reduce their carbon footprint, and meet sustainability goals by providing partners and their customers access to the most modern solutions for Corporate Carbon Footprints, Product Carbon Footprints, CBAM, and additional environmental KPIs.
The company is focusing on supply chain activities, the source of many carbon emissions.
According to Schildmann:
”Literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of mid-sized companies in the supply chain need to generate data to appease enterprise company clients, buyers, and regulators.
We want to build software that solves that problem for them as efficiently as possible, but at the same time generate the data that large enterprises need to get a grip on their supply chain and sustainability such as scope 3 emissions.”
Mid-sized companies are motivated to act on carbon reduction due to a mix of buyer demand and regulation, especially as a company grows in size.
“There are a lot of companies we talk to who say ‘Our existence as a company is threatened because we cannot generate this data and we lose contracts if we cannot provide that data.’ But at the same time they lack the resources to hire a dedicated full time staff member to carbon accounting.
We make this as easy as possible for mid-market companies by leveraging AI automation.”
Forward earth’s software can calculate the emissions through a workplace from supply chain to product level. The company’s knowledge of the carbon space and science has enabled it to configure efficient models that are multilingual from the beginning, “because it's global supply chain, so it's a global market,”
An all-in-one whitelabel software solution
The company integrates its software as an embedded whitelabel solution to software partners from the compliance, supply chain management, ESG, and procurement management space, who want to offer carbon or environmental management to their own customers but don't want to build this themselves or they have already built it and they don't want to maintain it because it's so complex.
“They don’t want multiple solutions, they want one solution. This solves the problem for the end customer very elegantly, while providing our partners with revenue opportunities while de-risking their own operations because they can focus on their main value proposition, which is much broader and also very different from environmental management.”
This can be a major defining factor in efforts to decarbonise the global economy, because have the potential to onboard the 100’s of 1000’s of companies who would probably not have embarked on their carbon reduction journey otherwise or so easily.
Schildmann explained that the company’s platform can reduce time to result by up to 90 per cent:
“An analysis for a $3 billion company, which would have taken us literally two to three months before, was completed in just four days.”
Rapidly gaining traction with US expansion on the cards
With its seamless integration into existing compliance and supply chain software, forward earth’s environmental management platform has been rapidly gaining traction.
In the past three months alone, forward earth has signed several major partners, with several more partners finalizing contracts soon.
forward earth’s expansion into the US market is a key milestone for the company. The newly raised funds and partnership with Mosaic will be instrumental in supporting the establishment of a US entity, with operations expected to begin in the coming weeks.
New funding in response to growing demand for expansion
Unlike many startups that require significant external funding, Schildmann noted, “We were fortunate to be in a comfortable financial position.”
The company secured €3.2 million in June of this year, a blend of private investment and a grant from the European Union (EFRE).
This funding recognised forward earth technology's crucial role in addressing environmental challenges within global supply chains and aligns with the EU's drive toward sustainable business practices.
But this time, it was investors approaching forward earth who realised eventually “there’s so much demand from the partner side, which we can only meet if we now increase the team to build out all of these functionalities in a way that we can really launch it to a mass market.
Mosaic Ventures led the round which also included Speedinvest, and Revent.
Chandar Lal from Mosaic Ventures, said:
“We’re thrilled to join forward earth on their mission to decarbonise global supply chains. Humans alone cannot solve this problem at the required scale – and Micha, Cari and Giuseppe are the first team to bring a truly AI-first approach to market.
With their unique approach and remarkable early momentum, we believe they’re poised to build the new global standard for environmental management.”
Learning how to do sales the American way
In light of Schilmann’s significant experience in entrepreneurship and sustainability including his previous role at companies like Planetly (acquired by US company OneTrust in 2021) I was keen to gain some insights into learning that he brings to forward earth.
He cites the value of learning how to scale a company:
“We went from zero to 300 people within two years, and the importance of focus. “We avoid distractions by not spending our current energy expanding into other industries for example.”
One Trust also taught him how to do sales the American way: “it’s an approach that is very much story driven, and One Trust taught me how to bring someone along the journey with you, which is how we now do partner sales.”
Schildmann said:
“forward earth is experiencing extraordinary global demand, and we're rapidly scaling our operations. Mosaic Ventures is the ideal partner to bolster our European presence and accelerate our expansion into the US, leveraging its extensive network on both sides of the Atlantic.
With this additional funding, we're poised to rapidly decarbonise global supply chains and drive environmental compliance.”
The company is also planning expansion to Asia in the near future, as businesses in the region seek support to meet new sustainability requirements as environmental regulations tighten due to an increased focus on supply chain activities.
Lead image: forward earth team. Photo: uncredited.
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