Leading legal automation platform for startup funding steps into backing blockchain marketplace in carbon-neutral deal.
SeedLegals, the leading legal automation platform for startup funding, has partnered with JustCarbon, a company simplifying the offsetting of carbon emissions and supporting high-quality, hyper-scale carbon capture projects to combat climate change, to drive its first carbon-neutral investment raise.
Addressing the global movement towards a low carbon economy and launched in 2022, JustCarbon is the first blockchain-based carbon offsetting platform to commoditize carbon dioxide removal from credits derived from the highest-quality, nature-based projects and verified to the highest international standards. The platform is seeking to raise up to $5 million seed round investment to significantly scale its presence within the buoyant carbon marketplace, currently worth $2 billion*, and establish its own standards body with end-to-end recording on the blockchain.
SeedLegals have, to date, helped just shy of 50,000 startup founders and investors from traditional business backgrounds. This will be the first blockchain-based company it has partnered with and the first fully carbon offset investment round. To make the JustCarbon investment round and future SeedLegals’ partnerships carbon neutral, 200 JustCarbon Removal tokens (JCRs) ─ equating to 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) removed from the atmosphere ─ have been retired, the equivalent of the annual carbon footprint of just over 13 UK citizens. According to Carbon Savvy, the average UK citizen emits 15 tonnes a year.
According to Toby McCrindle, Chief Legal Officer, SeedLegals, “Web 3.0 is growing and the benefits of blockchain technology, such as tokenization and smart contracts, can massively benefit industries like the voluntary carbon market.”
“JustCarbon is able to build a clear and transparent audit trail from carbon removal projects to carbon offset purchases that will be reassuring for investors. In addition, our ability to use these tokens to fully offset our entire process from start to finish gives us peace of mind. We hope that many more businesses follow our lead.”
Behind JustCarbon are a team of collaborative co-founding industry and market veterans from carbon markets, climate and impact finance, technology, and blockchain – all with a passion for saving the planet. Council members include Russell Parsons, Founder and active shareholder of Profusion Media, Founder of pioneering underwater cable recycling company SubSea Environmental Services, and Co-Founder of Wisper: an international internet backbone company that sold to Cable and Wireless in 1999. Adrian Rimmer is Director of Sustainable Finance for LSG (London Stock Exchange Group), former CEO at The Gold Standard Foundation, and President of the Climate Markets & Investment Association.
Additional team members include John Auckland, impact investment entrepreneur and Founder of both GreenTribe Fund and ESG crowdfunding agency, TribeFirst; Chad Williams, Business agility transformation consultant; and Juan Puente, who helped pioneer the use of the Internet in Spain and collected and returned more than 8,000 tonnes of plastic back from the environment.
JustCarbon plans to use the investment round proceeds to scale operations to secure further carbon projects, in particular Blue Carbon, and build its global team. It will also invest in e-commerce, website business growth, and new product development.
Russell Parsons, co-founder, JustCarbon, said: “JustCarbon is designed to make market access simpler and more efficient for both buyers and sellers, ensuring that engaging in climate action is transparent and accessible as well as environmentally sound. Partnering with SeedLegals not only fuels our investment round, but it is a great example of how, if businesses think differently, they can also help fight climate change by funding climate action.”
