Frederic Fournier found his way into crypto, he says, out of necessity.
An environmental engineer by trade, he launched a nonprofit devoted to helping reforestation projects find funding. One big source of funding for such projects is carbon credits, which businesses buy to offset their own carbon emissions. But by and large, Fournier found, the community-based organizations he worked with didn't have access to that market.
"We were really looking for a way to put them in charge of their own destiny," he told Insider.
So he cofounded Open Forest Protocol, a Web3 climate-tech startup, which seeks to create a more accessible path for these projects to get verified and listed on carbon-credit markets. It's raised $4.1 million in pre-seed funding led by the crypto-focused venture capital firm Shima Capital. Other participating investors include Ubermorgen, Not Boring Capital, Mercy Corps Ventures, Byzantine Marine, Big Brain Holdings, Valor Capital, and Aera Force DAO.
Fournier, Open Forest Protocol's CEO, cofounded the startup with Aureline Grange, a fellow environmental engineer at his nonprofit, and Michael Kelly, an early contributor to the Near blockchain. Based in Zug, Switzerland, Open Forest Protocol runs an open-source platform that connects a network of independent scientists and businesses who review and confirm data from reforestation projects, which is stored on a blockchain. Typically, according to the company, projects have to pay $50,000 or more to get their data verified.
But on Open Forest Protocol, they can do so at no upfront cost. The startup takes a cut of the proceeds from the carbon credits once they're listed, and it also shares a portion of those proceeds with the data validators in its network. The company is now working with more than 40 reforestation projects around the world, including Greener Communities Program in Kenya, Urbem Forests in Portugal, and Green Balam Forests in Guatemala.
Here's an exclusive look at a version of the pitch deck Open Forest Protocol used to raise $4.1 million:
