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July 2023 » thefivestar.com 25 July 2023 I N D U S T R Y U P D A T E closing its Series A funding round for $9.4 million. The funding will be used to further drive carbon measurement, reduction, removal, and reporting as Climate Vault Solutions amplifies the mission started at Cli- mate Vault, Inc., an award-winning nonprofit, to provide organizations with an all-inclusive climate partner. "Carbon action and meaningful sus- tainability initiatives that make a real-world difference are no longer optional for today's businesses," said Jason Grant, President and COO of Climate Vault Solutions. "We've already reduced nearly one million metric tons of CO2 emissions as Climate Vault, Inc. through government-regulated compliance carbon markets and support from our part- ners. Today's launch of Climate Vault Solutions is the logical next step to help us substantially increase our impact while equipping organiza- tions with the tools to take direct action against the climate crisis in a verifiable, quantifiable, and transparent way." The round was led by the Inclusive Capi- tal Partners Foundation, a private foundation based in San Francisco, with additional investment from King Philanthropies, Valor Siren Ventures, and ThirdStream Partners. True system change requires forces of gov- ernment, business, and philanthropy to work together. We are excited about Climate Vault Solution's mission for carbon reduction," said Lee Seward, Chairman of the Inclusive Capital Partners Foundation board. "We look forward to working closely with management to help scale their innovative solutions." "I am thrilled to work with visionaries and value creators like the Inclusive Capital Partners Foundation team. This investment will allow Climate Vault Solutions to achieve escape velocity toward our mission of reduc- ing climate damages," said Michael Green- stone, Chairman of the Board for Climate Vault Solutions and Milton Friedman Dis- tinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. "My co-founders and I first launched Climate Vault, Inc. as a nonprofit in 2021 to fix a broken supply chain in the voluntary carbon offset market and to spur innovation in carbon dioxide removal. Since then, we've already helped the planet avert an estimated $190 million of climate damages. This investment allows us to satisfy the demand from world-leading organiza- tions that have already partnered with us to neutralize their carbon footprint, like North- ern Trust Bank, Morningstar, T. Rowe Price, Cleary Gottlieb, and DRW, as well as launch new collaborations." Investments in climate solutions have been steadily on the rise in recent years as a fifth of the major companies on the Forbes Global 2000 list and 61% of the world's coun- tries have made net-zero commitments. In a report from PWC, climate tech investment in the 12 months to Q3 2022 represented more than a quarter of every venture dollar invest- ed, a greater proportion than 12 of the prior 16 quarters. In addition, according to Axios Pro, when compared to other SaaS sectors which are experiencing market turbulence and decreased investments, climate tech has actually seen an increase in seed and Series A fundraising. Businesses with a focus on carbon capture, monitoring and reporting, energy storage, or alternative fuels have received the greatest share of new funding. "We are honored to support Climate Vault Solutions and its compelling innova- tion in the carbon market," said Kim Starkey, CEO of King Philanthropies. "Its exciting win-win solution will mitigate climate change while improving livelihoods globally for the most vulnerable." "We believe there is a significant oppor- tunity to improve carbon measurement soft- ware tools and carbon removal innovation efforts," said Jon Shulkin, Co-President of Valor Equity Partners and Fund Manager for Valor Siren Ventures. "We're grateful to part- ner with the Climate Vault Solutions team as they expand their climate measurement soft- ware and launch new carbon removal tools, which we believe will help to tackle many of the challenges in the sustainability measure- ment and carbon reduction sectors." Climate Vault Solution's integrated reduction and removal program leverages government-regulated compliance carbon markets to knock out carbon in days, not decades, to make the environmental impact that today's employees, stakeholders, and customers care about and increasingly expect from organizations. Its data-centric solutions will enable organizations to measure, reduce, remove, and report their operational carbon footprints, plus the impacts from their prod- ucts, employees, portfolios, and events.