Brazil reforestation startup Mombak raises $30 million in USV-led round
SAO PAULO, April 29 (Reuters) - Brazilian reforestation firm Mombak has secured $30 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Union Square Ventures (USV), it said on Tuesday, in another sign of growing investor interest in Brazil's carbon removal sector.
Mombak, a leading startup in the nascent industry, restores degraded farm and pasture land to Amazon rainforest with native species and sells credits from the carbon captured to companies looking to voluntarily offset their greenhouse gas emissions.
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The latest Series A round also involved existing investors Kaszek, Bain Capital and AXA-controlled (AXAF.PA), opens new tab AXA IM Alts, Mombak said, in addition to fresh investors Lowercarbon Capital and Copa Investimentos.
Funds from the round will be primarily used to scale up business operations, said Mombak, which has already planted 5 million native trees on 45,000 acres under management — an area three times the size of Manhattan. The company aims to reach 8 million trees planted by June.
"We are moving from startup to scale-up. We decided it was time to have a new capital round to invest in this new phase: taking our initial business and doing it in a much larger scale," Mombak co-founder Gabriel Silva told Reuters.
The fundraising is the latest sign of growing activity in Brazil's carbon removal industry, with startups such as blue-chip founded Biomas and billionaire Joao Moreira Salles-backed re.green having also launched major projects in recent months.
The sector has attracted firms such as Alphabet 's Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, Facebook owner Meta (META.O), opens new tab and McLaren Racing, all of which have signed deals to take carbon credits from Brazilian projects.
Mombak has so far inked $150 million worth of carbon removal offtake contracts and expects that volume to grow up to four times this year. The startup has attracted some $200 million in investments since it was founded in 2021.
"We believe that carbon removal will be one of the defining industries of the 21st century," USV managing partner Andy Weissman said. "We're proud to support Mombak's mission to turn the Amazon into a global engine for climate restoration."
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