Berlin-based startup Vaayu has closed an $11.5 million (€10.6 million) seed funding round showing that there is growing interest in carbon-tracking software specialised for retail brands.
Clothes in a stack with carbon emission paper recycled label. Credit: Tatyana Aksenova / Shutterstock
Vaayu is said to be “the world’s first automated carbon software for retailers to measure, monitor and reduce their carbon footprint in real-time”.
The cleantech company tracks carbon footprints in real-time and offers offsetting and carbon removal services so that retail brands – some of the world’s biggest polluters – can see the fine details of their carbon output through more than 600,000 data points and across their supply chain.
This round’s funding was led by Atomico, whose partner Terese Hougaard will now sit on Vaayu’s board. The double-figure sum includes follow-on-funding from CapitalT and the involvement of Seven Seven Six.
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In July 2021, the startup had raised $1.57 million (€1.45 million) in pre-seed funding. The company already has a customer portfolio of 50 clients including Missoma, organicbasics, espressoh and Astrid & Miyu.
Vaayu was launched during the pandemic by Namrata Sandhu, who previously led sustainability at Zalando, and Luca Schmid a software engineer. According to Tech Crunch, three-quarters of Vaayu’s board is now female.
In an interview with Sustainability, Sandhu said, “The purpose of what we do is to give retailers the data so they can reduce their emissions and we can help them meet the Paris agreement targets for 2030. Businesses really need to understand what is driving up their carbon emissions, in order to take really significant action to reduce them.”
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The garment industry is one of the world’s most polluting sectors. According to figures published by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the fashion industry “is responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined”.
In order to make just one pair of jeans, 3,781 litres of water is used – the equivalent of 33.4 kilograms of carbon emissions. According to CNN, a “white cotton shirt purchase results in the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as driving your car for 35 miles (56km).”
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