Finland is a land of forests, covering up to 75% of the country. Naturally, forestry is a major industry – but resources are hard to measure. Helsinki-based forestry tech startup CollectiveCrunch is bringing new solutions to the sector, and has just raised a €600k funding round led by Thominvest. Existing and new angel investors also participated in the round. CollectiveCrunch will use the funds to finalize and launch the first commercial version of its Linda Forest platform in the second half of 2019.
Thominvest has a solid background in forestry, and so intimately understands the value CollectiveCrunch brings to the market. The startup uses AI to assess data from multiple sources – such as optical satellite images, Lidar, and wood processing – to predict forest inventory more accurately than existing conventional methods. This helps landowners to more accurately assess and manage their forestry inventory, and buyers of wood resources to target the wood they actually need.
“We are following developments in AI closely and have been aware of CollectiveCrunch since 2017,” said Thominvest Group’s Mats Söderström. “CollectiveCrunch is focused on the forestry industry and we were convinced by the team’s capabilities and the commercial progress they have made in the last quarters.”
CollectiveCrunch’s Linda Forest AI platform utilizes climate, geo, and customer process data to arrive at better predictions of wood mass and forest inventory. The solution lets foresters know the volumes and species of wood they have on their land without having to drive out for inspection.
“The funds raised in this round are essential in building the team and technical capabilities to fulfill our ambition of becoming a global leader in AI for the forestry industry,” said CollectiveCrunch CEO Rolf Schmitz.
The closure of this latest €600k round brings the company’s total funding to €1 million.
The round follows a recently announced multi-year partnership with Finland’s Metsähallitus Forestry Ltd. that aims to improve harvesting and forest development planning. The company has offices in Helsinki, Berlin, and Munich, and forestry customers in Finland, Sweden, Estonia, and Brazil.
