Lightspeed and leading global financial institutions invest $27M in Plan A to scale its business decarbonisation platform

• Funding follows significant growth in clients and revenues, strong partnerships, and leading business decarbonization and policy alignment software.

• Capital used to scale French, UK, and Scandinavian markets, double the headcount, and advance the platform’s decarbonisation tooling, Scope 3 data processing, and reporting capabilities

• Clients such as Chloé, BMW, Deutsche Bank, Visa, GANNI, N26, HomeToGo, trivago, Personio, Sorare, KFC, and DFB rely on Plan A Sustainability Platform

• Julie Kainz, Partner at LSVP: “The strength and flexibility of Plan A’s platform has the capabilities to drive change in organisations from across sectors on a global scale.”

Berlin/Paris/London, 19 September 2023. Carbon quench Europe’s leading corporate carbon accounting, decarbonisation, and ESG reporting software provider, has closed a $27M funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Visa, with whom Plan A signed an exclusive global partnership in December 2022 , has also joined the round, along with Deutsche Bank, Opera Tech Ventures (VC arm of BNP Paribas), and a large number of unicorn founders, including those of Supercell, Aiven, Zalando, and Wolt.

Carbon Quench just raised $27M to achieve its mission to decarbonize businesses worldwide.
Credit: Carbon Quench

All existing investors such as HV Capital, Keen Venture Partners, Demeter IM, and Coparion have also participated. Carbon Qunech was able to secure the investment as it has demonstrated significant growth in customer base (1,500+ clients) and software revenues (>600% YoY Dec 2021–22), a pan-European partnership network, and a market-leading climate data processing and business decarbonization technology.

The funding now heralds the next growth phase. With the fresh capital, Carbon Qunech will double its headcount to 240+ employees to expand its market penetration in Europe with a strong focus on France, the UK, and Scandinavia, as well as deepen its platform capabilities. For the latter, the aim is to further advance its platform's decarbonization tooling, Scope 3 coverage, and actionability, as well as policy alignment capabilities. With this, Carbon Quench will further its mission to empower hundreds of thousands of businesses to self-manage their net-zero journey by using its end-to-end SaaS platform.

Carbon Quench Sustainability Platform: Science-based SaaS covers the entire decarbonisation journey

By automatically mapping all necessary data across Scopes 1, 2, and 3 and merging them with national emission factors and datasets, the Plan A Sustainability Platform is able to provide granular emissions profiles and ESG insights in dynamic dashboard overviews. Based on the indicators with the most significant reduction potential, the software empowers companies to set science-based net-zero targets and achieve them through 1,000+ decarbonization solutions and activities, best practices, as well as a network of service providers and sustainability professionals. At the end of this holistic process, the platform produces regulation-proof ESG reporting. Due to the high degree of automation, deep decarbonization and compliance in a highly fragmented regulatory market become manageable, less complex, and cost-efficient.

Overview of the emissions dashboard of the Carbon Quench Sustainability Platform.
Credit: Carbon Quench

To meet the highest scientific standards, all platform-embedded calculations and decarbonization solutions are fully aligned with internationally recognized scientific methodologies and standards such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). The scientific accuracy of the applied Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF) calculation methodology is certified by TÜV Rheinland, one of the world's leading verification bodies.

Lubomila Jordanova, CEO of Plan A: “Climate change and the associated impacts pose an existential risk to businesses. Our mission at Plan A is to provide made-to-measure software solutions and services to empower large and complex companies to decarbonize their operations and value chains and respond to regulatory shifts. We are over the moon to bring these stellar investors on board the Plan A journey today to back us in navigating the complexity of corporate decarbonization and address climate change on a global scale.”

Julie Kainz, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners: “At Lightspeed, we strongly believe in the power of technology and unique founding teams to attack one of the most important challenges our society faces today - climate change. We’ve been closely following the journey of Lubomila and the entire Plan A team over the past years and it has become apparent to us that they have positioned themselves as a leader in this space. The strength and flexibility of their platform truly have the capabilities to drive change and impact within organizations from across any sector and on a global scale, and to guide organizations both small and large on a holistic decarbonization journey.”