CarbonFarm raises €7 million Series A to scale high-integrity rice decarbonisation

CarbonFarm, a digital MRV provider and project developer specialising in rice decarbonisation, today announced the closing of an oversubscribed €7 million Series A round. CarbonFarm helps the rice industry turn climate ambition into measurable change across millions of small farms.

The round brings together leading impact and climate investors with a development finance institution. It was led by Colam Impact, with participation from Proparco, Suma Capital, elea, Working Capital Fund, Albo, and BPI France. Existing investors Serena & makesense (via Racine²) and Techmind, also renewed their support.

The funding will support CarbonFarm’s next phase of growth, expanding the technology and expertise needed to develop, finance, and measure high-integrity rice projects worldwide.

Rice: an overlooked climate opportunity

Rice feeds half the world’s population. Yet its cultivation produces around 12% of global human-caused methane, a potent climate super-pollutant, giving rice a greenhouse-gas footprint comparable to that of global aviation. Rice farming also uses as much as 28% of the world’s freshwater resources.

Practical solutions already exist. Better water management—including allowing fields to drain periodically rather than keeping them continuously flooded—can reduce emissions by up to 50% and water use by up to 30% without reducing yields. These practices can also make rice farming more resilient to droughts, floods and extreme weather. Rice decarbonisation therefore presents a rare opportunity to address climate mitigation, adaptation, water security and rural livelihoods simultaneously.

That potential is attracting growing interest in rice carbon projects. Rice credits are now compatible with most regulated carbon markets, opening new sources of finance. Corporate buyers are also increasingly prioritising methane reduction to slow near-term warming, with recent rice-carbon deals announced by Amazon and Google highlighting this momentum.

Building the infrastructure to scale rice decarbonisation

Rice is predominantly grown by smallholders, often on plots of around one hectare. Scaling a programme therefore means convincing tens of thousands of farmers to change practices—and giving buyers and funders reliable evidence of the results.

The hardest part of rice decarbonisation is working effectively with farmers on the ground. CarbonFarm believes this is best done by organisations that have built trusted relationships with farming communities over many years. CarbonFarm therefore partners with rice producers, cooperatives, agribusinesses, NGOs, governments and local project developers. It complements their capabilities with rice-project-development expertise, digital MRV, access to climate finance and connections to carbon buyers and corporate supply chains.

To analyse what is changing across so many small plots, CarbonFarm uses AI-powered analysis of satellite imagery, field-data collection tools and greenhouse-gas modelling. This allows partners to track farming practices and quantify emissions at field level, providing stronger evidence for carbon credits and corporate supply-chain claims.

“Carbon accounting is becoming much more rigorous, whether it underpins a carbon credit or a corporate Scope 3 claim,” said James Hastwell, co-founder and CTO of CarbonFarm. “Independent, field-level evidence is becoming the expectation. Projects that can show clearly how their results were scientifically measured build greater confidence and can attract buyers willing to pay a premium for high-quality credits.”

Measurement is only part of the work. CarbonFarm also supports partners from project design and financing through to certification and finding buyers.

“Scale will not come from replacing local value-chain players; it will come from equipping them,” said Vassily Carantino, co-founder and CEO of CarbonFarm. “They understand the farming systems and have the relationships needed to make change happen. Our role is to help turn this local knowledge into programmes that can attract finance and stand up to scrutiny.”

A global ambition for rice decarbonisation

CarbonFarm model is already scaling. Since its previous funding round, CarbonFarm has expanded to 19 countries. It now works with leading food and ag players including Mars Food, Diageo, Ebro, or Tilda, BASF Agricultural Solutions, carbon-finance players like Livelihoods Funds, and myclimate; development organisations including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, SNV, Helvetas, or Action Against Hunger; and tech companies like Google.

“CarbonFarm is building the enabling infrastructure for one of the largest untapped decarbonisation opportunities globally. We believe its combination of project-development expertise, climate-finance capabilities and digital MRV creates a uniquely scalable platform in the rice sector." said Benjamine Friderich, Investment Director at Colam Impact

The new funding will allow CarbonFarm to deepen its presence across Asia, Africa and Europe while accelerating its expansion into Latin America. This global growth comes as rice decarbonisation attracts increasing attention from climate investors, corporates and development finance institutions seeking scalable opportunities to reduce methane emissions while supporting farmers.

The participation of Proparco, a development finance institution, reflects this growing momentum. “Rice decarbonisation is a highly promising climate-finance opportunity that is beginning to receive the attention it deserves,” said Jean-Gabriel Dayre, Co-head Regenerative agriculture, Carbon Markets and Naturetech at Proparco. “CarbonFarm has built a strong project-development portfolio and the capabilities needed to channel high-integrity climate finance towards rice-growing communities. We are delighted to support the company’s continued growth.”

CarbonFarm’s ambition is to make high-integrity rice decarbonisation possible at global scale—and to become the go-to partner for organisations seeking to develop projects, deploy climate finance or credibly measure their impact.