Carbon fact, a carbon management software startup, announced it has raised $15 million in funding aimed at supporting the fashion industry with solutions to automate environmental data collection and reporting.
Founded in 2021 and based in Paris, France, Carbonfact provides solutions for apparel, luxury and footwear brands to measure, report and reduce emissions, and comply with regulations such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Carbon Facts said the funding comes as apparel and footwear companies face an increasingly stringent regulatory environment, with new sustainability reporting rules requiring large amounts of data to be manually verified and consolidated across the supply chain. The company said its solution addresses these challenges, automating the data collection and reporting process and enabling accurate, foundational data collection from multiple tiers of the supply chain.
Carbonfact’s software connects to companies’ IT systems, cleans and analyzes the data to identify gaps and anomalies, and uses machine learning to systematically fill in missing details to provide reliable footprint calculations, even when the data is incomplete. Carbonfact recently released a new suite of modelling tools that enable fashion brands to understand how changes in product design or supplier choices will affect their carbon footprint before the product is manufactured.
Marc Laurent, CEO and co-founder of Carbon Facts, said:
“After meeting with hundreds of textile brands and suppliers, we found that collecting and reporting data on all product and supply chain information is a complex task that requires comprehensive data management that goes beyond what is possible with spreadsheets. We believe fashion brands should be able to measure and report their climate change progress with limited manual effort.”
The new Series A round was led by existing investor VC firm Alven, which also led Carbonfact’s seed round in 2022, with participation from VC firm Headline, which will join the board, and startup accelerator Y Combinator, which included Carbonfact in its 2021 batch.
Since its seed round 18 months ago, the company has partnered with more than 150 apparel and footwear brands, including Columbia, New Balance and Carhartt, according to Carbonfact.
Bartosz Jakubowski, partner at lead investor Alfven, said:
“We strongly believe that the future is vertical, product-centric carbon management platforms and are impressed with Carbonfact’s leadership position within the fashion industry.”