From left to right: Johan Piel, chief creative officer and co-founder of Doconomy, and Matthias Wikström, chief executive officer and co-founder.
Pre-economy
Swedish climate-focused fintech startup Doconomy told CNBC on Thursday that it has raised €34 million ($36.9 million) from leading European banks, including YBS and CommerzVentures.
Doconomy, which offers tools to help bank clients measure the carbon footprint of their everyday spending, has raised funding in a Series B funding round co-led by UBS Next and CommerzVentures, the venture capital arms of UBS and Commerzbankrespectively.
Financial data and analytics company S&P Global has joined as a new investor, while existing shareholders Motive Ventures, PostFinance and Tenity also participated.
Founded in Sweden in 2018, Doconomy works with companies including Boston Consulting Group, Mastercard, S&P Global and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to calculate the climate costs of financial transactions.
Among the firm’s tools is AIand Index, a cloud service for banks that helps their clients convert every transaction into a corresponding CO2 emissions. The index is used by more than 100 financial institutions in more than 40 countries.
Doconomy plans to use the fresh money to expand its presence in North America and introduce new products, CEO and co-founder Matthias Wikstrom told CNBC.
“In the future, we want to enable every bank in every corner of the world to engage their customers in ESG. [environmental, social, and governance] “We see a connection between E and S, environmental and social. We can’t isolate these two different streams.”
Wikström said he was “very excited” to see partnerships emerging with companies such as UBS and Commerzbank, describing them as “an alliance that wins both money and intelligence to get this problem under control.”
Politicization of climate
News of Doconomy’s latest funding follows the company’s February 2023 deal to acquire Dreams Technology, a platform that uses behavioral science to improve customers’ digital engagement and financial well-being.
Wikström said Doconomy’s Series B round valuation was unchanged from the price at which it raised funds in its Series A, in which the company raised cash from companies such as City venture enterprises, Mastercardand Ikea’s parent company Ingka.
Doconomy’s growth story has not been without its challenges. More recently, the firm has faced attacks from right-wing online commentator Jordan Peterson and his followers.
It’s not really hurricane season anymore, it’s fear season.
Matthias Wikström
CEO of Dokonomics company
Last week, Peterson took aim at the company in a post on social media platform X, calling it “the soft positive, planet-saving voice of the worst corporate/fascist/green tyranny imaginable.”
The Canadian psychologist, who rose to online fame by criticizing so-called political correctness, is a well-known skeptic who has called climate change “a get-out-of-jail-free socialist idiot.” He once cited rising greenhouse gas emissions as a positive for making the planet “green in the driest areas.”
Climate scientists say this is misleading because it does not take into account the negative impacts of worsening droughts, wildfires and heat waves caused by global warming on plants and ecosystems.
Wikstrom told CNBC that Peterson’s attack on his firm “shows that we need to educate a lot of people.”
“Fear will lead to frustration, and frustration will potentially lead to protests, and protests will lead to violence, and violence will lead to damage,” he told CNBC.
Wikstrom said he hopes the more the likes of Peterson and other climate skeptics continue to “beat the drum,” the more likely their sentiments will eventually ring “empty.”
“Looking at what’s happening in Hawaii, in Canada, in France, in Spain, in Greece – we have floods, fires, we have so many problems right now,” he said. “It’s no longer hurricane season, it’s fear season.”
Climate fintech is a niche area of financial technology that is attracting increased investor interest as governments around the world push corporations to achieve ESG goals and reduce the carbon emissions associated with their operations.
Michael Baldinger, chief sustainability officer at UBS, said the bank’s venture investment in Doconomy “underscores our focus on driving innovation to provide the data and actionable information our clients need to make informed choices about their investments and drive the change they want.” they want to see.”
Clarification: The headline of this article has been updated to clarify that CommerzVentures, the venture capital investment arm of Commerzbank, was involved in Doconomy’s €34 million fundraising.