WeWork's Adam Neumann Is Back
Adam Neumann made his post-WeWork debut when Flowcarbon, a blockchain-based carbon credits company, announced that it has raised $70 million in its first round of funding. Neumann is both a founder and an investor in the startup. Reuters reports: The company aims to tap into the growing market for carbon credits companies buy to offset their greenhouse gas emissions as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy in the fight against climate change. Despite increasing demand, the market has drawn criticism for being fractured, opaque, hard to access and with question marks over the quality of some credits. To help fix this, Flowcarbon lets project developers sell their carbon credits through tokens, digital assets stored and traded using blockchain technology, allowing them to access cheaper funding and scale their projects more quickly. "Our mission is to provide the financing necessary to scale projects that reduce or remove carbon from the atmosphere, in particular nature-based projects," said Chief Executive Dana Gibber. Nature-based projects could include those focused on reforestation, conservation or nature restoration. By "tokenizing," developers can access cheaper financing earlier in the life of their project by selling forward their credits, she said. Buyers, meanwhile, will have greater transparency over their holdings and a broader range of them can join in, including individuals, smaller companies and those in the crypto market. The firm raised $32 million in the funding round led by Silicon Valley financiers Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz through their a16z crypto venture capital firm. Other investors included General Catalyst and Samsung Next. The balance was raised through the sale of a token - the Goddess Nature Token - backed by a parcel of certified carbon credits from nature-based projects over the last five years. More such tokens are planned with other parcels of credits. Further reading: WeWork Co-Founder Adam Neumann's New Crypto Project Sounds Like a Scam Within a Scam (Recode)
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