🌍 Venturing in ReFi #25
Your 5-minute deep-dive into regenerative web3 startups
Happy Thursday!
Below are your global fundraises and curated web3-for-climate articles. Today’s curated content covers:
🌊 Web3’s ocean-focused markets need more scientists
⛓️ Resources for learning about blockchain
📊 Insurance and blockchain
We’re excited to profile and invest in this emerging sector with you. Let’s dive in:
Global Ecosystem News 🌊
Fundraises 🚀
💸 Leading “planet-positive” blockchain Celo announced that top ReFi projects in their ecosystem (Loam, impactMarket, and Circular Impact) have collectively raised $6M.
🌏 Creduce, an India-based carbon credits developer, is set to raise $20M in a Series A round to develop an interface for Web3-powered emissions tracking and offsetting.
📱 Joro, an Oakland-based startup, raised $10M in a Series A round led by Sequoia Capital and Amasia to develop a mobile app to help users track, reduce, and offset emissions.
Ecosystem News
🚜 Nori partnered with Bayer Crop Science, a world-leading agriculture company, to bring hundreds of thousands of verified carbon removal offsets to the Nori Marketplace.
💧 Flowcarbon partnered with decentralized social media platform MintDropz, allowing creators to offset the footprint of their MintDropz NFT collections using Flowcarbon’s $GNT carbon token.
🤝 Solid World DAO announced a partnership with Neutral Protocol, a derivatives platform for ReFi assets, to allow trading of Solid-World-backed carbon futures.
👩🎓 Dubai high school students won the The Uber Global Hackathon “Most Innovative Team” award for their working prototype of a blockchain-based emissions tracking app.
⚡️ Spanish tech companies Blocknitive and Enviroscale collaborated to launch “Blockchainergy,” Web3 software to certify renewable sources of electrical energy.
Newly Launched Projects 🤔
💾 Filecoin Green announced the launch of CO2.Storage, a Web3 solution offering storage of environmental asset data.
⏩ Patch, a San Francisco climate software startup, announced Patch Offtake, a pre-purchase agreement program to provide upfront financing for carbon removal projects.
👩🏫 CryptoHunt, an online crypto education resource, launched the “How to do good with crypto” course starting with lessons featuring ReFi protocols, impactMarket (a universal basic income startup) and Spirals Protocol (a ReFi carbon credits startup).
🌻 ReFi Spring, a non-profit providing resources to ReFi event coordinators worldwide, launched a funding campaign on the Giveth.io decentralized public goods crowdfunding platform.
Founders feel free to DM our editor a project on Twitter @AlexFilotimo
Curated Readings 📚
1 - To save the ocean, Web3 needs more scientists | World Economic Forum
In this opinion piece, the WEForum mentions a variety of #ReFi startups (including Klima DAO, Toucan, and Regen Network). The authors note these projects could reshape funding flows to conservation and have already started to scale.
The articles points to various *proposed* uses for NFTs, and then notes the concerns. Primarily, scientists are needed to help examine these fields. Given web3 is so nascent, there is no research into the side effects of these new conservation efforts.
Especially given some of these #ReFi projects are trying to create novel global markets, let’s examine these concerns and share this article with our academic friends.
Web3 initiatives for ocean conservation. Image: Moonjelly
2 - Basics of Blockchain Resources
If you’re a reader new to the world of crypto, you may enjoy this Twitter thread. Scroll down it for 25 curated resources on crypto fundamentals.
3 - Smart contract-enabled insurance holds promise, but can it be scaled?
Coin Telegraph wrote this clear eight-minute breakdown of where, how, and whether blockchain might serve the insurance market.
They show the dream: blockchain developers can code digital smart contracts to take the place of insurance documents. Then, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations can provide the coverage instead of major corporations.
Whether or not entrepreneurs can realize that dream, crypto startups are starting to provide weather insurance to farmers in remote villages. Millions of farmers in Africa and Asia could purchase insurance now that blockchain mechanics make it possible (global low-cost payouts, faster distribution, and potentially lower-cost operations). Can the insurance providers create a decent product and explain this technology to farmers in poverty? We’ll see.
Fun extras
🦜 If you’d like a regular carbon market analysis, Toucan Protocol runs the excellent deCarbonized newsletter.
🛠️ If you’re looking to build a startup in ReFi, the ReFi DAO supports our industry’s founders.
Feel free to reply with feedback, suggestions, or fantastic articles for crypto/climate investors. 📩
With love,
Alex, Yoshi, and the Aera Force DAO
Researching web3 venture investments for a flourishing future
P.S. If you want to contribute research into web3-climate investing, feel free to contact us or contribute to this open-source insights repository.
This newsletter is for educational purposes only. While we strive for accurate and unbiased information, none of it is verified or intended to help as investment advice.