Single.Earth- tokenizing nature, making it the new gold
Forests are the foundation of life- but it’s under threat from deforestation and forest degradation. Single.Earth has set out to revert the trend, by tokenizing natural resources to ultimately save our planet. We are happy to announce their $7.5m Seed led by us at EQT Ventures together with participation from the previous investors Icebreaker and Ragnar Sass and Martin Henk, the founders of Pipedrive.
Let’s start with an uncomfortable truth. The world has lost one-third of its forests, and if nothing is done up to 420 million acres of forest could be lost between 2010 and 2030.
Forests are more than just a collection of trees- they are home to some of the most diverse life on Earth. As forests are important in the carbon and water cycles that make life possible, their destruction sets off a series of changes that affect life around the world. For example, when forests are removed they emit carbon instead of absorbing it, and it’s estimated that deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for around 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
As the climate crisis is the biggest existential risk that humanity has faced in the last 200,000 years, you can’t help but wonder why nature doesn’t have an inherent value being kept just as it is.
Experienced in building scalable technology for Pipedrive and e-Estonia, the Single.Earth team is driven by their goal to switch from today’s economy that incentivises nature destruction, to a new economy that supports the preservation of nature.
In essence, Single.Earth is a marketplace that enables forests, wetlands, and other planetary resources to generate profit for landowners by selling them as carbon and biodiversity offsets, to companies, organisations, and eventually individuals.
Leveraging technology like satellite imagery, big data analysis, and machine-learning, Single.Earth reveals how much any area of ecological significance in the world absorbs CO2 and retains biodiversity. Single.Earth then emits a MERIT token for every 100 kg of CO2 sequestered in a specific forest or biodiverse area, and the MERIT tokens generate profits through carbon offsets.
The tokens can be used to trade as an investment instrument, compensate for CO2 footprint, or contribute to climate goals (as the token is ‘used up’ and cannot be traded anymore).
Through this approach, Single.Earth provides real assets in the physical world with commercial value while preserving nature. Landowners are rewarded for preserving the ecosystems that keep us alive, and this by getting paid by literally doing nothing. For the investors, benefits include transparency and trust, thanks to the traceability of blockchain, and a less volatile token.
The funding will be used to launch the Single.Earth marketplace later this year and for hiring talent.
If you feel inspired to join the Single.Earth movement, here are a few ideas of how you can support 💚 🌳 :
- Landowner? Sign up here to see the value of your land, and to start generating profit while fighting climate change.
- Want to compensate for your carbon footprint or invest in nature? Sign up here to compensate for your footprint and here to invest in nature, and you will get early access to the pre-sale of the world’s first nature-backed MERIT tokens.
- Want to join the stellar Single.Earth team? See available positions here.
- None of the above? Share Single.Earth’s mission to your network.
A company having a hectare of forest saved as a key metric to scale is a company we are thrilled to back. We are beyond excited to welcome Single.Earth to the EQT Ventures family together with our portfolio companies with impact at the core, like Origin.Bio (breaking our societal addiction to petrochemicals), Einride (all-electric transport vehicles), Heart Aerospace (electrifying regional air travel), Sana (democratising knowledge), Treecard (debit card that reforests the planet ) and Seeq (digital quantum computing).
Finally, shot-outs to Sonja, Ashley, Ted, Cilia and Sai who were a part of the deal team, and to Rasmus and Aleksi at Icebreaker.
