Meet 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 by decarbonizing supply chains, carbon credits will also play a role in the coming years as a supplement to these decarbonization efforts.
“We think that about 70 to 80% of emissions today can be reduced by actions directly within industrial and general goods supply chains. But there are things that we’re going to have to do that are not within the supply chain of companies,” co-founder and COO Vivian Bertseka told me.
And this is where carbon credits come along. This system of carbon offsetting with carbon project developers is sometimes also called beyond value chain mitigation.
The startup focuses specifically on that area and recently raised a $5.6 million seed round led by Point Nine. Before that, the company had already raised a pre-seed round from several angel investors and industry experts, bringing BlueLayer’s total amount raised to $10 million.
BlueLayer acts as the software back end for carbon project developers. It helps those companies when it comes to managing carbon credits as it acts as the single source of truth for inventory and orders with the ability to generate reports, leverage data visualization tools and eventually make decisions that could potentially maximize revenue.
BlueLayer aims to focus exclusively on project developers. They could be working on various projects, such as reforestation, forest conservation, peatland restoration and more. The startup also picked a traditional SaaS revenue model instead of charging commissions on carbon credit sales.
“We’re not a broker; we’re not an intermediary. 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,” co-founder and CEO Alexander Argyros told me.
Right now, they need better tools to manage their existing projects as well as integrations with other stakeholders. BlueLayer can also connect with legacy ERP systems, distribution channels and rating agencies. In the future, they may have other needs when it comes to pre-financing future projects with forward contracts and pre-allocating carbon credits.
You might think that there is a limited pool of potential clients, but BlueLayer has already held talks with over 200 carbon project developers.
Headquartered in Berlin with teams in London and Athens, BlueLayer was co-founded by Alexander Argyros, who previously co-founded PE investment platform Moonfare; Vivian Bertseka, who was a climate investor with Generation Investment Management and a founding partner at Just Climate; and Gerardo Bonilla, Moonfare’s former head of product.