Perennial (formerly Cloud Agronomics) Announces $18M Series A Funding Round with Investments from Temasek, Bloomberg, SineWave Ventures, and Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund
Boulder CO, 16 May 2022 – Cloud Agronomics announced today that it has rebranded to Perennial as it continues to build a leading soil carbon measurement, reporting and verification (“MRV”) platform for soil-based carbon removal. It has also secured an additional $18M in funding from top climate-aligned investors. The Series A funding round was co-led by Temasek and Bloomberg alongside SineWave Ventures and the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund.
Perennial’s vision is to unlock agricultural soils as the world’s largest carbon sink.
Agriculture is one of the largest contributors to CO2 emissions and represents one of the most powerful solutions to reverse the effects of climate change. Agricultural soils can sequester and store billions of tons of atmospheric carbon, and with the correct incentives in place, farmers can drive this change through regenerative farming while adding to their top line from carbon offsets.
For agriculture companies, Perennial’s platform supports insetting to reduce emissions in the food supply chain. For corporations outside of agriculture, Perennial verifies the supply of carbon offsets, which are critical to meeting net-zero emissions commitments.
Perennial’s enterprise MRV platform verifies both insets and offsets. Within the food supply chain, food companies and CPGs work with Perennial to measure and reduce agriculture-based emissions for the food, fuel, and fiber that feeds the world. And for offsets, developers of soil carbon offset projects partner with Perennial to measure and verify soil-based carbon offsets, which are then sold to corporate emitters looking to meet net zero emissions commitments.
"At Bloomberg, we are committed to fostering innovative technology solutions that will help companies deliver against net zero targets," said Ben Macdonald, Global Head of Enterprise Product at Bloomberg. "Our investment in Perennial is a natural fit for this philosophy.”
Perennial is dedicated to compliance with the leading GHG reduction standards. In the voluntary carbon offset market, the company is working with prominent registries to make it easier for landowners to generate carbon offset credits. In Australia, Perennial is compliant with the Australian Clean Energy Regulator, and is working with the world’s largest project developer to increase adoption of regenerative agricultural practices by lowering the cost of participation.
“The measurement, reporting and verification of carbon stored in soil remains costly and complicated, and current methods do not scale to millions of acres. What is needed is an accurate, cost-effective, and highly scalable way to measure and report carbon stored in soil everywhere, all the time. That is the key to unlocking the enormous market potential for trusted soil-based carbon offsets. That is the Perennial platform,” said co-founder and CEO Jack Roswell.
"Having to collect physical soil samples on every field undermines the potential of soil to serve as a scalable carbon sink. This is clear when you look at the disparity between the soil’s large carbon storage potential and the small supply of soil-based carbon offsets today. Perennial is developing a world-class MRV platform for soil-based carbon removal that is accurate, cost-effective, and scalable to millions of acres globally.”
The Perennial Logo
Perennial’s research is led by Chief Scientist Dr. James Kellner, a remote sensing scientist and biologist at Brown University recognized for his work on remote carbon quantification. “By estimating carbon sequestration in soils using remote sensing in place of physical sampling, we can take advantage of lessons learned during the same transition in forests over the last few decades, where remote sensing has become the international gold standard that replaced on-the-ground measurements” Kellner said. Perennial is built on years of academic research that combines remote sensing and ground observations to map soil carbon in agricultural soils.
“Our technology reduces or eliminates the need for physical soil sampling. Reducing the sampling burden will drive down the cost of generating carbon offsets in agricultural land.” Kellner added. And it works; in 2021, Perennial created the highest-ever resolution map of soil carbon across the continental United States.
The Importance of Nature-Based Carbon Removal
Today, carbon markets are supply constrained – there is a greater demand for carbon offsets to counterbalance emissions than there is a supply of verified offsets.
As a result, corporations are consuming supply faster than it is generated, in some instances creating advance-market commitments to lock in and accelerate the development of carbon removal technologies by guaranteeing future demand.
Without nature-based carbon removal, the world will not meet its emissions reduction targets because demand will continue to outpace supply. Within the category of nature-based solutions, agricultural soils are unique in their ability to remove carbon without encroaching on new land, through farmers adopting climate-smart agricultural practices. Additionally, there are tremendous co-benefits when carbon is removed from the atmosphere and stored in soil, including improvements in soil health, biodiversity, and crop yields.
“The Perennial team has made tremendous progress over the last 12 months in developing the foundation of our MRV platform and performing a number of market validation projects with customers in the United States and Australia. Now is the time to establish agricultural land as a trusted asset for the issuance of carbon offsets underpinned by Perennial’s MRV platform with a heightened level of transparency and auditability. Buyers of such offsets in the future will be able to measure and track their investments in carbon offsets in support of ESG quantification and reporting requirements. Farmers will receive a steady stream of income. This new funding round comes at an exciting time and will allow us to build our team and accelerate our go to market plans,” said Jaymin Patel, Executive Chairman.
Perennial is hiring!
“Join us in our journey to harness earth to heal the planet. We raised $18M, the largest-ever Series-A for soil carbon MRV, to expand our world-class team and unlock soil as the world’s largest carbon sink,” said Roswell.
Current team members have experience in the private sector, research labs, and government, including work with NASA and Sandia National Labs. Perennial has open positions across engineering, data science, product, sales, business development, and operations.
To learn more, visit www.perennial.earth
About Temasek
Temasek is a global investment company with a net portfolio value of S$381 billion (US$283b) as of 31 March 2021. Headquartered in Singapore, it has 13 offices in 9 countries around the world. The Temasek Charter defines Temasek’s three roles as an Investor, Institution and Steward, which shape its ethos to do well, do right, and do good. As a provider of catalytic capital, it seeks to enable solutions to key global challenges. With sustainability at the core of all Temasek does, it actively seeks sustainable solutions to address present and future challenges, as it captures investable opportunities to bring about a sustainable future for all. For more information on Temasek, please visit www.temasek.com.sg.
About Bloomberg
Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration.
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