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Brief: Soil carbon platform Perennial raises $18m from Temasek, Bloomberg, Microsoft

May 17, 2022

  • Cloud Agronomics has rebranded to Perennial and raised $18 million for its soil carbon measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) platform that aims to help companies meet their net zero emissions commitments through better insetting and offsetting.
  • The Series A round was co-led by Temasek and Bloomberg alongside SineWave Ventures and the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund.
  • Boulder, Colorado-based Perennial will use the funds to build its team and accelerate its go-to-market strategy.

Why it matters:

Through a mix of machine learning, ground observation, and remote sensing tech, Perennial can determine the presence of carbon and other nutrients in soil while bypassing the expensive, lengthy process of taking physical soil samples and sending them to a lab for testing.

“Reducing the sampling burden will drive down the cost of generating carbon offsets in agricultural land,” Perennial chief scientist Dr. James Kellner said in a statement. This would address a major issue in today’s carbon markets, where demand for carbon offsets outpaces the current supply of verified offsets.

Kellner says Perennial has created the highest-ever resolution map of soil carbon across the United States.

Perennial’s MRV platform handles both carbon insetting and offsetting. Companies within the agrifood value chain can access the platform to measure and reduce their agricultural-based emissions. Outside the food supply chain, companies developing soil carbon offset projects can partner with Perennial to monitor their projects and verify the offsets they sell to buyers.

Corporate commitments for reducing carbon emissions have proliferated over the last year both in and outside of the agrifood value chain. However, Perennial says that without nature-based carbon removal solutions like leveraging soil, these companies are unlikely to meet their reduction targets.

“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,” Jaymin Patel, executive chairman of Perennial, said in a statement. “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.”

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