In a classic “turn to crypto to reinvent yourself” moment, controversial WeWork founder Adam Neumann recently launched a startup, Power carbonto sell tokenized carbon credits on the blockchain.
Venture capitalists can’t get enough of Neumann and his wife/co-founder, Rebekah, who started the company along with CEO Dana Gibber and two others, Caroline Klatt and Ilan Stern. Now, Flowcarbon says it has: Raised $70 Million in Funding led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto division (a16z crypto) through a combination of traditional VC stocks and a token sale.
General Catalyst, Samsung Next, 166 2nd, Sam and Ashley Levinson, RSE Ventures and Allegory Labs joined a16z in the venture round, the company said, with Fifth Wall, Box Group and the Celo Foundation participating in the token sale. .
The Flowcarbon protocol helps projects sell tokenized carbon credits to companies looking to reduce their carbon footprint. The credits can then be traded on crypto exchanges, the company says.
However, why put these credits on a leash? Proponents, including Gibber, say it will make it easier for projects providing these loans to raise capital and increase transparency for buyers.
Of the total funds raised in this round, $32 million came from venture capital firms and $38 million from the sale of Flowcarbon’s Goddess Nature Token (GNT), a crypto token on the Celo blockchain backed by carbon credits, Reuters reported. GNT’s underlying carbon credits are pre-certified by industry groups including Verra, Gold Standard, Climate Action Reserve and the American Carbon Registry, then sold in bundles to companies, according to Reuters.
Gibber told Reuters that carbon credit providers pay a 2% tokenization fee to Flowcarbon to sell their credits on-chain, lower than the cost they would incur selling these credits through traditional channels, which can take up to 30% of the project value. to be .
The credit can also be isolated from the bundle, according to Gibber, and physically delivered to a token holder if that holder wants to sell it off-chain.
The company is playing in a crowded space as many startups have jumped on board with crypto’s regenerative finance (ReFi) movement, which aims to use blockchain technology to solve environmental problems. Projects like Toucan† rain† Moss and KlimaDAO are all working on crypto-based carbon credit solutions.
A private sale of Flowcarbon’s GNT token will end in two days, and the company is currently allowing people to pre-register for an upcoming public sale of GNT, according to its website.
