€10.3M Seed Round to Power AirForestry’s Fossil Free Aerial Forestry
Uppsala, October 10, 2024 - AirForestry, the world’s first company to develop aerial tree harvesting technology, has closed a €10.3M seed funding round led by Northzone, with participation from strategic, evergreen, and greentech investors Sveaskog, Kiko VC, CapitalT, Walerud Ventures, SEB Greentech VC, and Cloudbreak VC. AirForestry will use the funds to further develop their innovative technology that will bring forestry into a green, fossil free, more productive future.
● Inventing fossil-free forestry with fully electric technology.
● Harvest trees with drones for a healthier forest, better at carbon sequestration.
● Seed round closes at €10M with Northzone as lead investor.
AirForestry’s Founders and Leadership Team: Olle Gelin, Founder and CEO, Gösta Forsén, CCO, Dr Mauritz Andersson, Founder and CTO, Caroline Walerud, Founder, Executive Chairman, and Walerud Ventures, Paul Carbonnier, COO, and Oskar Lund, CFO. Photograph: Ulf Berglund.
Uppsala, October 10, 2024 - AirForestry, the world’s first company to develop aerial tree harvesting technology, has closed a €10.3M seed funding round led by Northzone, with participation from strategic, evergreen, and greentech investors Sveaskog, Kiko VC, CapitalT, Walerud Ventures, SEB Greentech VC, and Cloudbreak VC. AirForestry will use the funds to further develop their innovative technology that will bring forestry into a green, fossil free, more productive future.
This funding includes €1.7M in grant financing from the Swedish Energy Agency (Energimyndigheten), positioning AirForestry to further develop its breakthrough technology: harvesting trees from above with drones. By eliminating the need for heavy ground-based machinery, AirForestry minimizes terrain disruption and protects biodiversity while promoting healthier, more resilient forests through targeted thinning of weak or sick trees. Making the process fully electrical further brings the company closer to its vision of becoming the green global solution for forestry.
“We're thrilled about our new investors who believe in the same goal as we do – making forest products more cost-effective and even more sustainable by unlocking all values of the forest. We now have a strong position to bring this solution to foresters, so that they can manage their forests effectively and increase productivity, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration”, CEO and Founder at AirForestry, Olle Gelin, says.
Traditional forestry consumes more than 3.5 billion liters of diesel annually. AirForestry's fully electric technology offers a transformative alternative, with the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 10 megatons annually. Early testing shows that by thinning forests without logging trails and improving growth conditions, their solution can save approximately 0.8 tonnes of CO2 per hectare each year - equating to over 500 megatons globally.
“We have a fantastic configuration of investors to build the next chapters towards our vision. We’re excited to welcome Northzone’s General Partner Pär-Jörgen Pärson and Kiko VC’s Ben Murphy to the Board of Directors”, Caroline Walerud, Founder and Executive Chair, comments and adds “Looking ahead, we hope to tackle larger portions of forestry, with an environmental upside that will result in many gigatons of saved CO2.”
The round is led by Northzone, a renowned global $4 billion multi-stage venture capital fund, famous for investing in several ground-breaking companies, such as Spotify, Trustpilot, and iZettle.
“AirForestry represents a pivotal leap forward in sustainable and more cost effective forest management with a solution that drives both environmental impact and technological progress. It is hard to imagine a team better equipped to disrupt this particular industry. Olle Gelin is one of the most knowledgeable and connected forest experts in the world and Mauritz Andersson leads a team of world class experts in autonomous systems and drone technology”, Partner at Northzone, Pär-Jörgen Pärson says.
Additional investors include Kiko VC, an evergreen deeptech climate fund, alongside SEB Greentech VC, an evergreen climate investor, Cloudbreak VC, a European family office founded on electric drive units, and founding investors Walerud Ventures, a family office building deeptech for the living planet – not to mention Sveaskog, one of the world’s largest forest owners and the largest forest owner in Europe.
Among the investors we also find CapitalT, the Dutch venture capitalist company focused on climate and future of work, with serial entrepreneur and founding partner Janneke Niessen at the helm.
“We believe in backing technologies that not only solve pressing environmental challenges but also create real, scalable impact. AirForestry’s electric drone solution is doing just that by reinventing forest management in a way that promotes forest health, reduces carbon emissions, and boosts productivity. Their team, with extensive experience in both the forestry and technological sectors, plays a key role in driving this innovation forward. We are thrilled to support their mission and see them play a crucial role in the future of sustainable forestry”, Janneke Niessen, Founding partner at CapitalT closes.
From the left: Janneke Niessen, Capital T, Samira Aissi, SEB Greentech VC, Dr Mauritz Andersson, Founder and CTO, Ben Murphy, Kiko VC, Olle Gelin, Founder and CEO, Caroline Walerud, Founder, Executive Chairman and Walerud Ventures, Per Callenberg, Sveaskog, and Pär-Jörgen Pärson, Northzone.
AirForestry
Start-up and deeptech company AirForestry leverages electric drones to thin forests from above, reducing the environmental impact of traditional forestry methods. Without the need for logging trails or ground-based machinery, AirForestry additionally helps protect biodiversity and significantly cuts carbon emissions. This innovative approach enables healthier, more resilient, and more productive forests that are dramatically better at carbon sequestration, storing more than 500 megatons more CO₂ globally – per year. For more information, visit airforestry.com.
Northzone
Northzone (northzone.com) is a global venture capital fund built on experience spanning multiple economic and disruptive technology cycles. Founded in 1996, Northzone has raised more than ten funds to date, with its most recent fundraise in excess of €1 billion and has invested in more than 150 companies, including category-defining businesses such as Trustpilot, Spotify, Klarna, Tier, iZettle, Kahoot!, Personio, TrueLayer, Spring Health, Forto, Zopa and Flink.
Northzone is a full-stack investor from Seed to Growth stage, with transatlantic hubs out of London, New York, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm and Oslo.
Linnéa Skogh
Head of Marketing
press@airforestry.com
(+46) 072-084 02 78
AirForestry
Start-up and deeptech company AirForestry leverages electric drones to thin forests from above, reducing the environmental impact of traditional forestry methods. Without the need for logging trails or ground-based machinery, AirForestry additionally helps protect biodiversity and significantly cuts carbon emissions. This innovative approach enables healthier, more resilient, and more productive forests that are dramatically better at carbon sequestration, storing more than 500 megatons CO₂ globally – per year. For more information, visit airforestry.com
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