he meets Bluelayer, a new European startup that is building a software platform specifically designed for carbon project developers. In particular, BlueLayer wants to help these companies manage their carbon credits at scale.
While the best way to prevent carbon emissions is to decarbonize supply chains, carbon credits will also play a role in the coming years as a complement to these decarbonization efforts.
“We believe that about 70 to 80% of emissions today can be reduced through direct actions within industrial and public goods supply chains. “But there are things we need to do that are not within the corporate supply chain,” the co-founder and COO told me. Vivian Pertsica.
This is where carbon credits come in. This carbon offset system with carbon project developers is sometimes called post-value chain mitigation.
The startup is specifically focused on this area and recently raised a $5.6 million funding round led by Point nine. Prior to this, the company had already raised a seed round from several angel investors and industry experts, bringing BlueLayer’s total amount raised to $10 million.
BlueLayer acts as a software backend for carbon project developers. It helps those companies when it comes to managing carbon credits because it acts as a single source of truth regarding inventory and orders with the ability to create reports, leverage data visualization tools, and ultimately make decisions that are likely to maximize revenue.
BlueLayer aims to focus exclusively on enterprise developers. They can work on different projects, such as reforestation, forest conservation, peatland restoration, and more. The startup also opted for a traditional SaaS revenue model instead of charging commissions on carbon credit sales.
“We’re not a broker, we’re not a broker. So, we don’t take big commissions on sales, and that’s because we need to be aligned with one side of the ecosystem, which is the developers,” Alexander Argyros, co-founder and CEO, told me.
Currently, they need better tools to manage their current projects as well as integrate with other stakeholders. BlueLayer can also connect to legacy ERP systems, distribution channels, and rating agencies. In the future, they may have other needs when it comes to pre-financing future projects through forward contracts and pre-allocation of carbon credits.
You might think there’s a limited pool of potential clients, but BlueLayer has already held conversations with more than 200 carbon project developers.
Headquartered in Berlin with teams in London and Athens, BlueLayer was co-founded by Alexander Argyros, who previously co-founded the private equity investment platform Moon tripVivian Pertsica, who was a climate investor at Generation Investment Management and a founding partner at Climate onlyand Gerardo Bonilla, former head of product for Moonfare.