Aussie start up AirSeed Technologies kickstarts Series A raise Fund deal worth up to $200M

Environmental restoration disruptor, AirSeed Technologies today announced it is partnering with leading impact investment manager Conscious Investment Management (CIM) as it establishes a carbon sequestration fund of up to $200M, one of the largest of its kind.

AirSeed and CIM expect the restoration and carbon sequestration projects to generate meaningful upfront revenue to AirSeed over the next five years in service provider revenue to conduct planting.

This is AirSeed’s first large-scale contract with a leading impact investment manager and will be key to creating one of the largest carbon sequestration funds of its kind. It validates our value proposition for large-scale application of our hyper productive planting solution.

To support this, AirSeed is launching its Series A capital raise to provide additional funds to execute this milestone contract and scale the business to maximise on this transformative opportunity.

AirSeed is already partnering with iconic Australian brands including Telstra to establish environmental plantings.
AirSeed has also confirmed highly respected climate transition and business specialist Mara Bún as the latest addition to the Board. Ms Bún has a long track record in climate, nature and impact campaigns and solutions. She is Chair of Australian Impact Investments and a non-executive Director of Australian Ethical Investments and GreenCollar, Australia’s largest environmental markets investor.

Ms Bún’s extensive global experience and expertise across corporates and sustainability build on the existing expertise and connections of the AirSeed Board. With a background leading ESG finance, impact capital, carbon market and climate/nature innovation, She is Chair of Australian Impact Investments, Chair of The Bowerbird Collective, Non-executive Director of Australian Ethical Investments and GreenCollar and Founder of tech scale-up advisory group The Salmon Project. She led Business Development for CSIRO and internet equities research for Macquarie Bank.

AirSeed is on track to achieve 100 million pods planted by 2024 including via projects that were too large and too expensive to tackle until now. Pilot projects already underway in Australia across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland covering more than 650 hectares and include one of the largest environmental planting to date in Australia.

Quotes from AirSeed CEO & Co-Founder Andrew Walker

“Securing an agreement to work with CIM as it establishes one of the largest carbon sequestration funds of this type is important validation of our value proposition for large-scale application of our solution and brings us significantly closer to our 100 million planting goal by 2024.”

“AirSeed is currently in dialogue with a number of corporate investors who see the same economic and environmental opportunities as CIM. AirSeed is now capitalising so that we can deliver on this unique and critical opportunity at scale.”

“Launching our Series A funding round will drive AirSeed’s delivery of this massive opportunity and continue the transformation of our business to meet the rapidly growing appetite for reforestation and replanting opportunities at the scale necessary to help shift the dial on climate change.”

“This is a billion-dollar opportunity for AirSeed given our unique, scalable approach to rapid reforestation and investment in rigorous and robust reporting to show impact. Mara brings an impressive track record in successfully aligning strategy to global market opportunities for sustainability and corporate impact and extensive expertise in evaluating and mitigating risk. She has worked at the highest level of both sustainability and corporate and her insights are already proving invaluable.”

Quotes attributable to CIM’s Partner Alex Debney

“We’re delighted to welcome AirSeed as a new impact partner in the environmental sector. CIM’s carbon strategy focuses on working with high quality mission-aligned environmental organisations to rapidly deliver emissions reduction and biodiversity outcomes. We look forward to delivering carbon sequestration and native Australian reforestation at institutional scale by working closely with AirSeed.”

Quotes attributable to incoming AirSeed Director Mara Bún

“There are immense global opportunities for AirSeed given the uniqueness of its bio-diverse, scalable “seed pod meets drone” system. Nowhere else is there proprietary technology where the pod captures the local biome and is planted and then monitored via drones for the best chance of success.”

“AirSeed does this at an unprecedented scale and significantly cheaper and faster than human planting, with its technology providing robust and transparent reporting of impact. This is an increasing core part of the success of the carbon and nature markets. Given the higher quality of restoration possible through AirSeed’s approach, there is also a very exciting opportunity to generate a higher quality of carbon credit.”

SOURCE: AirSeed Technologies