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Venture capital investment in nature tech start ups has surged by $7.5bn worldwide over the past five years, signalling rapidly growing corporate interest in solutions for safeguarding nature and reversing biodiversity-loss, according to fresh research published today.
Spearheaded by Nature4Climate, investment firm Serena, and nature tech membership body MRV Collective, the study estimates early-stage deals rose by 130 per cent between 2020 and 2022, while average deal sizes for seed to series B funding increased by 70 per cent, pointing to growing maturity in the industry.
Nature tech’s food and agriculture category – which encompasses regenerative agriculture, biofertilisers, soil health monitoring and sustainable pest and livestock management – received the share of funding, attracting $5.31bn between 2018 and 2022, or 71 per cent of the total accumulated over the last five years, according to the study.
The second most attractive sub-section for investors in the report was found to be monitoring, reporting and verification tech – including biodiversity credits – which is calculated to have won investment to the tune of $1.23bn over the same period.
Amid such surging interest from investors, the report predicts the sector is capable of reaching the same level of maturity and scale as the current global climate tech market, which it calculates has grown from $413m in VC investments a decade ago to more than $41bn last year.
Nature tech, meanwhile – often considered a vertical sub-sector within climate tech – is currently valued in the report at more than $40bn alone.
The report defines nature tech solutions as a broad set of technologies capable of accelerating and scaling the implementation of high-quality nature-based solutions, such as satellite monitoring and nature-based carbon removal.
Such technologies, which can enable stakeholders to more accurately quantify, qualify, and articulate the relationship between human activity and ecosystems, are increasingly viewed as a powerful tool for combatting the global biodiversity-loss crisis and supporting the goals agreed at last year’s COP15 UN Biodiversity Summit in Montreal goal to protect 30 per cent of terrestrial and marine habitats by 2030.
However, despite a recent surge in investment into the burgeoning market, Serena managing partner Xavier Lorphelin stressed that nature tech alone would not be able to solve the biodiversity crisis, just as climate tech is unable to single-handedly solve the climate crisis.
“But it can be a strong enabler, notably in allowing to better quantify, qualify and report the positive and negative impacts of human activities on natural ecosystems,” he added. “We are convinced that nature tech is the new frontier and will rapidly grow and reach the same level of maturity and scale as climate tech.”
Lorphelin said he expected the growing investment flowing into supporting the UK’s nature and biodiversity innovators to cause “massive disruption”.
“New global actors – in energy, transportation, food, retail etc – will emerge in a decarbonised and nature-positive economy; they will rely on climate and nature technologies to disrupt the legacy players, like Tesla disrupting the legacy car manufacturers,” he explained.
“And this disruption will be triggered by entrepreneurs who understand they can positively change the world and build global decarbonised and nature-positive businesses,” he continued. “This is where VC money can help.”
Elsewhere, the report estimates the US market attracted 78 per cent of total global VC funding for nature tech between 2018 and 2022, with some $5.8bn of those figures originating from just 303 deals.
However, the global shift toward nature-positive economic activities also affords major opportunities for providers of measurement, reporting, and verification tools, which can play a key role in ensuring the confidence of project developers, investors, and financial institutions, the organisations said.
Yet while a range of opportunities exist in the nature tech market, the report emphasised the importance of establishing safeguards to manage risks and ensure the fair distribution of environmental and social benefits – especially among Indigenous peoples and local communities.
Nature4Climate chair Lucy Almond said the report highlighted the diversity and breadth of the initiatives that are underway around the world, with much of the innovation being tailored to local and regional challenges.
“It also highlights dozens of examples and case studies of innovations, products, and concepts that have been and continue to be developed by emerging companies, eager to contribute to addressing the interconnected crises of nature loss and climate change,” she said.
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