{"id":97380,"date":"2023-09-05T13:24:20","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T13:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/09\/05\/opna-wants-to-help-companies-hit-net-zero-by-finding-and-funding-carbon-projects\/"},"modified":"2023-09-05T13:24:20","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T13:24:20","slug":"opna-wants-to-help-companies-hit-net-zero-by-finding-and-funding-carbon-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/09\/05\/opna-wants-to-help-companies-hit-net-zero-by-finding-and-funding-carbon-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Opna wants to help companies hit ‘net zero’ by finding and funding carbon projects"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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The race to net zero has led thousands of businesses\u00a0to commit to eliminating their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a commitment that falls short of what is needed to counter the growing climate emergency.<\/p>\n

The problems are manifold. Insufficient action and planning among governments and corporations is part of it, but even with the best will in the world, the Herculean undertaking required to get businesses to net zero in less than three decades presents a vast gamut of challenges.<\/p>\n

Among them is how to help well-intentioned institutions invest in carbon projects, and \u2014 by extension \u2014 how to help carbon projects get investment? This is something that Opna is setting out to solve, with a platform that helps corporations find, fund, and monitor carbon projects as part of their offsetting endeavors.<\/p>\n

The London-based company, which rebranded from Salt some three months ago, today announced it has raised $6.5 million in seed funding as it looks to connect projects with corporates seeking to address their emissions as part of the so-called voluntary carbon market (VCM).<\/p>\n

Fully vetted<\/h2>\n

Founded in 2022, Opna serves as a direct artery for corporates to find fully-vetted project developers, saving them time and money sourcing projects to fund as part of their net-zero efforts. Additionally, Opna also helps facilitate the financing aspect through standardized processes and agreements, while enabling businesses to monitor their portfolio of projects over time through by key performance indicators (KPIs) and risk reporting.<\/p>\n

According to Opna founder Shilpika Gautam, the status quo for carbon project discovery and financing is largely an arduous, manual process with little in the way of digitalization. And there is little consistency across sectors, adding to the due diligence difficulties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe processes and tools are driven by the sophistication and expertise of corporations, and how business-critical their net-zero strategy is,\u201d Gautam explained to . \u201cThe most \u2018active\u2019 businesses are swamped with emails from project developers \u2014 as the process is entirely manual, it\u2019s hard for businesses to tell good or bad or duplicate projects, leaving them to default to working with project developers they know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Opna\u2019s founder Shilpika Gautam Image Credits<\/strong>: Opna<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

On the project side, there are a wide range of developer types, including larger private players such as\u00a0 South Pole and Ecosecurities that have access to their own capital pool. And then there are small and mid-sized players that typically need to raise upfront financing to fulfil their carbon projects. It\u2019s these latter ones that Opna is looking to support, whereby a financier (i.e. a corporation) provides some of the funding upfront with the promise either of future carbon credits, or commits to purchase carbon credits when they are delivered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe focus on projects where there are frameworks and standards available, and where the science is more known,\u201d Gautam said. \u201cIn other words, where we can really focus on tackling the financing challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of business model, Opna plans to charge a set percentage on completed financing transactions, as well as an annual subscription for monitoring, tracking, and reporting in projects that become financed.<\/p>\n

In its 18 or so months since its founding, Gautam says Opna has signed up \u201ctens\u201d of project developers from around the world who need upfront financing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work closely with these projects, which range from reforestation projects in South America, restoring degraded lands and conserving biodiversity, to biochar projects that create biofuels and achieve carbon removal, across several countries in Europe, Africa, and South Asia,\u201d Gautam said.<\/p>\n

On the financing side, meanwhile, Gautam said that Opna has been privately beta testing its platform with several enterprises across different sectors, though she stopped short of naming names. But its latest cash injection will be substantively used to scale things and boost customer awareness over the next couple of years.<\/p>\n

Carbon copy<\/h2>\n

There are a number of players operating in the Opna\u2019s space, including carbon removal marketplace Supercritical which recently raised $13 million in Series A funding. However, Gautam said that Opna is setting itself apart by not simply allowing companies to purchase carbon credits that have already been generated, but instead moving further upstream to help get new projects off the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpna\u2019s platform enables businesses to directly finance carbon projects, way before the projects generate a carbon credit,\u201d Gautam said. \u201c<\/span>This is a crucial distinction, because we currently have a supply shortage of high-quality credits, and by financing projects at the start, businesses help bring them to life, thereby locking in the future supply of credits that these projects eventually generate to match their net-zero goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opna\u2019s seed round was led by European VC Atomico, with participation from Pale Blue Dot, MCJ Collective, Angelinvest, Tiny VC, and several angel investors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The race to net zero has led thousands of businesses\u00a0to commit to eliminating their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a commitment that falls short of what is needed to counter the growing climate emergency. The problems are manifold. Insufficient action and planning among governments and corporations is part of it, but even with the best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"\nOpna wants to help companies hit 'net zero' by finding and funding carbon projects - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/09\/05\/opna-wants-to-help-companies-hit-net-zero-by-finding-and-funding-carbon-projects\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Opna wants to help companies hit 'net zero' by finding and funding carbon projects - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The race to net zero has led thousands of businesses\u00a0to commit to eliminating their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a commitment that falls short of what is needed to counter the growing climate emergency. 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