Cotierra raises $3M to scale decentralised biochar across tropical agriculture

Zurich-based climate technology company Cotierra has raised $3 million to take its technology from successful field deployments to repeatable commercial scale. The company has raised $4.75 million since its founding.

Across tropical agricultural value chains, large volumes of agricultural residues often go unused, while farmer productivity declines as soil health deteriorates and extreme weather becomes more frequent.

At the same time, food and beverage companies need to reduce emissions from their supply chains, while climate change threatens the reliability of their agricultural supply.  

Cotierra addresses this by building the technology infrastructure to make decentralised biochar simple to deploy and scale across tropical agriculture.

 Its end-to-end solution combines decentralised reactor technology with the digital platform needed to operate, monitor and verify biochar production. This enables agricultural businesses to turn residual biomass into biochar close to where it is generated, return carbon to the soil and track the results.

For customers, this means stronger farmer productivity and resilience, alongside reduced supply-chain emissions and carbon removal.  

Having proven the technology in the field within the coffee value chain, Cotierra is now focused on turning those successful deployments into a fully integrated hardware and software product.

PINC, the venture arm of international food and beverage company Paulig and Carbon Removal Partners led the round which included Zürcher Kantonalbank, Carbon Drawdown Initiative, better ventures, GOTA Ventures, Hungry4Impact and Triple Impact Ventures, alongside climate and impact-focused angel investors.    

Thomas Käslin, CEO and Co-Founder, Cotierra said: 

"We have shown that decentralised biochar offers a highly effective pathway to decarbonise and strengthen tropical agricultural value chains where biomass is widely dispersed. Now we are making it simple, reliable and scalable. 

Our ambition is to make it the standard solution for agricultural companies to strengthen farmer productivity and resilience while reducing emissions and removing carbon across their supply chains."  

Cotierra has initially built its model in coffee and is now expanding across other tropical agricultural commodities, including cocoa, cotton and citrus.  

Karl Swensson, Investment Director, PINC said:

“What stood out to us about Cotierra is the strong traction the company has achieved with coffee traders through a solution that delivers value for farmers, traders and coffee companies alike.

We believe decentralised biochar can play an important role in reducing emissions and improving resilience in coffee-growing regions.”  

According to Max Zeller, Founder & Partner, Carbon Removal Partners, Cotierra addresses a major untapped opportunity in tropical agriculture by leveraging agricultural waste to create resilient value chains, while delivering environmental benefits. 

“Cotierra has built the foundation to become a leading technology platform for more resilient and higher-yielding value chains across the tropics.”