Paris-based CarbonFarm raises €7 million to tackle methane emissions from rice farming
CarbonFarm, a Paris-based ClimateTech startup specialising in rice decarbonisation, has closed an oversubscribed €7 million Series A funding round.
The round was led by Colam Impact, the impact investment arm of Colam Entreprendre, the holding company for the French family-owned group Sonepar. The round also saw participation from Proparco, Suma Capital, elea, Working Capital Fund, Albo, and BPI France. Existing investors Serena & make sense (via Racine²) and Technmind also renewed their support for the company.
“CarbonFarm is building the enabling infrastructure for one of the largest untapped decarbonisation opportunities globally. We believe its combination of project-development expertise, climate-finance capabilities and digital MRV creates a uniquely scalable platform in the rice sector,” said Benjamine Friderich, Investment Director at Colam Impact.
Founded in 2021 by Vassily Carantino and James Hastwell, CarbonFarm partners with rice producers, cooperatives, agribusinesses, NGOs, governments, and local project developers to develop, finance, and measure high-integrity rice projects. The company has developed proprietary technology in collaboration with leading academic institutions, including Cornell University, INRAE, and the European Space Agency, that uses AI-powered satellite imagery analysis, field-data collection tools and greenhouse-gas modelling to track farming practices and quantify emissions at the field level.
It currently operates in 19 countries across Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, and counts major food and agribusiness companies including Mars Food, Diageo, Ebro, and Tilda, among its partners. The company also lists carbon-finance players like Livelihoods Funds and myclimate, development organisations such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, and tech giants including Google, as partners.
CarbonFarm says rice cultivation accounts for roughly 12% of global human-caused methane emissions, giving the crop a greenhouse-gas footprint comparable to that of global aviation while consuming up to 28% of the world’s freshwater resources. With improved water management practices, such as allowing fields to drain periodically rather than remaining periodically flooded, CarbonFarm says rice producers can cut emissions by as much as 50% and reduce water use by up to 30%, without affecting yields.
“Scale will not come from replacing local value-chain players; it will come from equipping them. They understand the farming systems and have the relationships needed to make change happen. Our role is to help turn this local knowledge into programmes that can attract finance and stand up to scrutiny,” said Carantino, co-founder and CEO of CarbonFarm.
The fresh capital will be used by CarbonFarm to expand its presence across Asia, Africa, and Europe while accelerating its push into Latin America. The company will also invest in expanding the technology and expertise required to develop, finance, and certify high-integrity rice projects, and to connect those projects with corporate supply chains and regulated carbon markets.
The funding, CarbonFarm says, will enable it to make high-integrity rice decarbonisation viable at global scale.
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