Climatetech startup Persefoni raises $9.7m in Series A funding round

Persefoni, an intelligent carbon accounting and management platform for enterprises and investors, announced it has raised $9.7 million in its Series A financing round. Rice Investment Group led the round, with participation from NGP ETP and Sallyport Investments. Persefoni intends to use the funds for business expansion, product innovation, recruitment, and to scale its business internationally.

As global companies strive to fight climate change and respond to new requirements increasingly being made by investors and regulators, they lack a broad set of tools to assemble, calculate, manage, and report organizational carbon footprints with the same confidence that they manage their financial transactions. Established in January 2020, Persefoni's SaaS platform is the market's first "ERP for Carbon Data", enabling global organizations and institutional investors to calculate and manage their carbon footprint enterprise-wide, and do so both real-time and in-line with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (Scope 1-3).

Kentaro Kawamori, CEO and Co-founder, Persefoni: "On the back of a banner year of net-zero commitments from governments, asset managers, and organizations the world over, we saw the venture and software investor communities wake up to what is the formation of the largest regulatory compliance software market since the introduction of Sarbanes Oxley. We applaud the efforts of financial regulators around the world who are implementing carbon and climate disclosure requirements. Such regulation is one of the most impactful ways to get companies accounting for, and reducing, their carbon footprint." 

Persefoni has accelerated its leadership position in the ClimateTech industry with the goal of combatting climate change worldwide. The Series A investment brings total capital raised to $13.2 million, which includes previous investments from Rice Investment Group and Carnrite Ventures, a venture capital firm. As part of the financing, Kyle Derham, partner at Rice Investment Group, and Greg Lyons, Principal at NGP, will join the Persefoni Board of Directors.

Danny Rice, Co-founder and Partner, Rice Investment Group: "We are excited about the progress that Persefoni has made in only a year. It's clear that the Persefoni team is creating a new category of software solutions that bridge the gap between investor and reporting company carbon reduction ambitions."

Persefoni continues to expand its customer portfolio with global clients like Private Equity firm TPG. The company enables organizations to plan across their entire enterprise or a single business unit to track and manage their carbon footprint, to seamlessly report over multiple standards, and ultimately to promote their decarbonization efforts. The Persefoni SaaS platform enables organizations to quickly surface data-driven insights that improve understanding of how and where to systematically lower the environmental impact of operations and financed emissions.

The new Series A funding follows the recent appointment of ESG integration expert Robert G. Eccles to the company's Sustainability Advisory Board. Eccles is a leading authority on corporate purpose and the integration of ESG factors in resource allocation decisions by companies and investors, and the founding chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). Persefoni was also recently recognized as the best technological innovation and winner of the Enterprise & Data category at the 13th annual SXSW Pitch® competition, held during the South by Southwest event in March.

Greg Lyons, Principal, NGP ETP: "NGP ETP only invests in companies that can meaningfully and cost-effectively contribute to global decarbonization efforts, like Persefoni. Persefoni has built a sophisticated enterprise-grade data management platform that should ultimately allow for transparency and accountability around organizational emissions targets. And the market need for carbon calculations and reporting that are accurate and auditable is exploding even before most major regulation can come into effect."

Doug Foshee, Founder and Owner, Sallyport Investments: "Sallyport looks to partner with high-growth companies with an aim of making a meaningful industry impact. Persefoni's world-class management team has a deep understanding of the sustainability and technology markets, and the company is well positioned to establish a market leadership role. This isn't about simply making carbon accounting and reporting available – it is about making it meaningful."

persefoni.com