Persefoni Raises $101 Million To Validate And Dominate The Carbon And Climate Software Market

Persefoni Raises $101 Million To Validate And Dominate The Carbon And Climate Software Market

On October 28th, Arizona-headquartered climate management and accounting platform Persefoni announced a monster $101 million Series B funding round. This comes fast on the heels of the $10 million Series A round which the firm closed in April 2021 and just two years after the firm was founded in 2019. The Persefoni Series B round was led by Prelude Ventures and TPG’s The Rise Fund. Ten other investment funds participated in the round including Bain & Co and power utility EDF’s venture arm.

What has caused financial investors to commit so much capital so early to Persefoni? Core to the start-up’s strategy is a focus on the urgent requirements of financial institutions to gather hard data on the footprint of their financed emissions. This requirement is being boosted by regulations like the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation which came into effect in March 2021. Asset managers and private equity funds are finding they need data on financed emissions to raise funds from Limited Partners (LP). By rapidly developing cloud software for financed emissions analysis based on the standard defined by the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials, Persefoni has won a clutch of top tier financial logos in a market segment with no entrenched competitors. What’s more, Persefoni’s own investors need the product to satisfy regulatory and LP demands.

By building a highly experienced advisory board – which includes the founding chairman of CDP, Paul Dickinson, the prior CEO of the GRI, Tim Mohin and the founding chairman of SASB, Robert Eccles – the Persefoni product team can tap into an executive network which guides them to develop products which align with future requirements. This enhanced innovation capability is reflected in the speed at which Persefoni has developed cloud software products for new use cases such as climate scenario modelling, TCFD reporting, carbon accounting for SBTi-certified net zero emissions progress and investor-grade carbon disclosures.

What are the implications for the market? Firstly, the size of the Series B funding for Persefoni and the range of investors involved sends a powerful signal that there is clear demand for strategic spend on carbon accounting, climate risk and net zero emissions software. In short, this is about validating the market. Secondly, a horde of competitors will aim to replicate the financed emissions functionality offered by Persefoni given the traction they have achieved. Thirdly, software vendors with existing products for the enterprise carbon accounting market – of which there are many according to a recent Verdantix benchmark – will need to raise more capital to compete with the resources that Persefoni have acquired. And in some cases overhaul outdated technology stacks to ensure they can scale up across thousands of customers and more granular data sets.