Arkadiah Technology (Arkadiah), a nature tech company based in Singapore, announced Thursday the successful closure of its seed funding round.

The round was led by Golden Gate Ventures, with the participation from The Radical Fund and Money Forward Venture Partners (HIRAC FUND), Arkadiah said in a statement.

With the new funding, Arkadiah plans to enhance their artificial intelligence (AI) models, expand their product offerings and be in a strong position to scale with project developers, natural climate investors, land owners and corporations.

Arkadiah is a nature tech company that revives degraded lands through AI-enabled nature restoration.

Its proprietary platform addresses Southeast Asia’s rich biodiversity, using AI to fuse LiDAR and remote sensing to bring transparency and traceability to nature restoration and catalyze nature as an investment asset, delivering high-quality carbon removal and biodiversity credits, sustainable community impact and investment returns.

According to the statement, nature-based climate solutions could provide estimated 30 percent of the mitigation needed till 2050 to achieve the 1.5℃ target of the Paris Agreement.

However, nature restoration projects are currently met with long, cumbersome and manual processes from project development, monitoring, and credit issuance. This hinders much-needed funding, scaling, and speed.

Arkadiah’s proprietary platform uses AI, LiDAR, satellite imagery and ground truthing to provide transparent and verifiable data with scientific rigour.

Digitizing the end-to-end process for project developers, landowners and corporations, the platform streamlines deployment of nature-based climate solutions, such as reforestation and agroforestry for high quality carbon removal and advancing biodiversity-rich ecosystems.

Founded in 2023, Arkadiah’s team consists of practitioners and experts in reforestation and landscape restoration, ecology, geospatial technology and software development, led by Reuben Lai (Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder) and Gerry Ong (Head of Geospatial and Co-Founder).

Reuben was formerly the Senior Managing Director at Grab Financial Group, and Gerry, a recognized leader in the geospatial industry with over 30 years of experience, is the Honorary President of the ASEAN Federation of Land Surveying & Geomatics (AFLAG) and currently leads AFLAG’s Climate Change & Sustainability working group.

“Through transformative AI and digital monitoring technology, we are eager to accelerate project funding opportunities and scale needed land restoration to bring the highest quality carbon removal and biodiversity credits in Asia,” Lai said.

According to the statement, Arkadiah’s platform was also purpose-built to cover the rich biodiversity and landscape of Southeast Asia.

The region saw 82 percent growth in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions between 1990 and 2020, mainly from fossil fuel combustion, agriculture, land use change and forestry.

Unchecked growth in emissions could cause the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) to fall as high as 37 percent in a severe scenario of 3.2℃ rise in temperature.

With 15 percent of the world’s tropical forests, key biodiversity hotspots, and agriculture-dependent economies, Southeast Asia is strategically primed to have nature-based climate solutions play an outsize role towards meeting the region’s climate ambition.

Arkadiah has implemented and is currently supporting pilots with over 15 projects in Southeast Asia and Australia on pre-feasibility/feasibility studies and carbon stock digital measurements.

“Arkadiah groundbreaking AI-enabled approach to nature restoration is not just innovative, it’s a vital step towards our shared climate goals for 2030. Seeing the potential impact in Southeast Asia, a region close to our hearts, is especially exciting,

“Arkadiah is a big step towards a greener, more sustainable Southeast Asia, and I’m honored to be a part of this transformative journey,” said Justin Hall, Partner at Golden Gate Ventures.

Alina Truhina, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner at The Radical Fund, said they believe Arkadiah is poised to become a dominant player in the emerging asset class of nature-based carbon credits.

“Their multi-pronged approach, powered by deep technology and strategic partnerships, enables rapid scaling and accurate measurement of carbon sequestration,

“With global enterprises showing increasing interest in carbon credits, and the establishment of market exchanges in Southeast Asia, the opportunity is vast and makes it the perfect time to seize this opportunity,” she added.

Naoya Kanesaka, Managing Partner at HIRAC FUND, said they have been seeing real demand for sustainable climate solutions among Japanese corporations as Japan aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and they are confident that Arkadiah is uniquely positioned to provide quality nature-based carbon credits in the Asia Pacific region.

“As our first overseas investment in the climate tech space, we believe in Arkadiah’s vision and are thrilled to be able to support Arkadiah in achieving their goals,” he said.

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