Making natural capital such as land or water investable and redirecting capital flows towards nature conservation is the vision of The Landbanking Group. To this end, the Munich fintech has launched the investment platform Landler.io. The solution aims to turn farmers and landowners into natural capital providers and companies into natural capital investors.
An international group of investors is supporting the platform’s development with Bonventure leading the way with €10.4 million (US$11 million). Among others, natural capital pioneer André Hoffmann also participated in the seed round. Venture capital funds such as 4P Capital, Vanagon, and Planet A want to contribute their expertise in the areas of marketing, ReFi, and impact measurement. In addition, the Sun Institute of the German Post Foundation and ten families and private investors are supporting the company’s development.
Erwin Stahl, Managing Partner at Bonventure, explains:
“As a high impact investment fund, we consider nature and biodiversity to be crucial for our shared future. The Landbanking Group has developed a groundbreaking platform that makes nature transparent and investable. We wanted to be part of this endeavor from the very beginning with our investment.”
The 40-person Landbanking team is committed to creating “the hardest currency for natural capital” by bringing together scientific knowledge and accounting practices into a transparent and regulation-compliant method for investing in natural capital. To do this, the Landler.io platform combines various technologies: earth observation, digital in-situ data, machine learning, and distributed ledgers. This allows it to assign a natural capital account to every hectare of the planet. Land cooperatives, managers, or owners can thus offer ecosystem services measured in nature. Companies, in turn, can invest in balance sheet-effective natural capital contracts.
The Landbanking Group plans to expand its customer base
The fresh capital allows The Landbanking Group to expand its customer base in the agriculture and food sector. Additionally, the startup plans to enter new markets in infrastructure, energy, and financial services. The funding also enables the development of monitoring models for additional ecoregions and expansion of land use towards nature conservation.
“In the 21st century, natural capital means prosperity. That’s why we must transition from a compensation logic to an investment logic”,
says co-founder Martin R. Stuchtey and adds:
“We can set up a natural capital account for every hectare of earth – as ‘collateral’ and bridge between nature and the world of investors.”
