Simon Jessop & Karl Plume

LONDON/CHICAGO, (Reuters) – Billionaire Tom Styers has led the most recent funding round for Regrow Ag. This technology startup aims to accelerate climate-friendly farming.

Salesforce (NYSE) founder Marc Benioff joined their Galvanize Climate Solutions in the $38million Series B funding along with existing investors such as trader Cargill, and Microsoft (NASDAQ)’s MS12.

Regrow estimates that food and agriculture account for 26% global carbon emissions. Companies are increasingly focusing on this area to lower their own emissions and green their supply chains.

To help fix the problem, Regrow, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, connects companies and others with farmers, who enrol in various programmes that pay them for adopting farming practices that reduce emissions, preserve soil quality and minimise use of chemicals.

Anastasia Volkova (Regrow founder and chief executive) stated that resilience is essential for agriculture to be able to provide food for our families today as well as to ensure a sustainable planet in the future.

Many farmers will choose to return to older farming methods, which were more common in the past before industrial farming. However, this comes at a high cost many farmers can’t afford.

It is important for companies and other stakeholders to make sure it happens. For instance, state-backed institutions want to ensure they get what they paid for.

The systemic difficulties in measuring carbon’s climate benefit, and the questions surrounding carbon storage and permanence have made it difficult for markets to expand.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2019 report, global croplands and grasslands could capture and store up to 8.6 gigatons each year.

Regrow’s technology platform lets farmers establish baseline carbon emissions. Then, they can estimate potential savings by changing practices like tillage less or adding livestock.

Regrow then uses remote sensing and satellite imaging to verify that the emission levels have decreased. This gives the purchasers of carbon credits greater confidence in the creation.