Agtech startup Cotierra closes oversubscribed pre-seed round

With the agricultural sector under pressure, Cotierra (formerly Terra Preta) sees immense potential for biochar to transform the industry by boosting the impact of regenerative agriculture practices and restoring essential carbon to the soil. According to the IPCC (2019), agriculture, forestry, and other land-use sectors account for 23% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, soil degradation is happening rapidly, especially in the Global South, with most land used for agriculture experiencing a significant loss of soil carbon.

Cotierra has developed a biochar solution tailored to the unique conditions of the Global South, starting with coffee. By converting coffee tree residues into biochar and applying it back to the plantations, Cotierra locks away carbon in the soil for centuries, restores soil health, and boosts farm productivity. This unique decentralized approach, enabled by its cost-effective and mobile reactor combined with a tamper-proofed Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification MRV system, allows the production of biochar near or on the farm. This makes it ideal for serving extensive smallholder farm networks that characterize coffee supply chains while effectively reducing logistic costs and avoiding increased biomass competition for centralized residues.

The secured funding will enable the company to fast-track the development and prove the operational feasibility of its innovative and cost-effective biochar reactor technology and robust MRV system in Colombia. The funds will also support agronomy studies to validate further emission reduction benefits and farmers' margins increase, to help our clients accelerate the regenerative agriculture transformation and generate reliable data for their sustainability claims.

"Our significant traction within the coffee value chain highlights the urgent demand for our decentralized biochar approach," said Thomas Käslin, CEO and Co-Founder of Cotierra. "This funding will not only accelerate the development of our technology to fulfil said demand but also enable us to demonstrate the tangible and measurable benefits of our approach on the ground in Colombia, from reducing and removing emissions to enhancing soil health and farmer profitability."

Participants in Cotierra’s pre-seed round include Carbon Removal Partners, Climate Founders, Carbon Drawdown Initiative, Partners in Clime, S2S Ventures, and notable ClimateTech business angels.

"Biochar is one of the best climate solutions and the only permanent carbon dioxide removal approach that is already economically feasible and scalable," says Markus Sudhoff, Managing Director at Climate Founders. Benjamin Schulz, Founding Partner of Carbon Removal Partners, also expressed his belief in the importance of tropical biomass for large-scale carbon removal, highlighting the role of Cotierra in combating climate change.

(Press release/RAN)