Seemingly a little forgotten about in the fight against climate change, methane emissions are an incredibly potent contributor to warming the earth. Aiming to change that, Germany-based startup Orbio Earth has just raised €600k for its methane intelligence solution.
The race to net zero with respect to carbon emissions is firmly on and startups, corporates, governments and individual civilians are all part of it. Fresh innovations, key targets and strict regulations are all helping fuel this forward. However, methane emissions are also a massive contributor to the climate crisis – we just don’t talk about it as much.
It’s reported that over a 20-year period, methane is actually 80% more potent at warming the earth than CO2.
Germany-based startup, Orbio Earth, is on task to accelerate the low-carbon transition with actionable methane intelligence and it’s just raised €600k to do so.
The details
Founded in 2021, the climate tech innovators have just closed a pre-seed investment round of €600k. The capital was led by VC firm Satgana and it comes amid a global escalation of efforts to cut methane emissions.
As its second portfolio startup, Satgana will support Orbio Earth to accelerate the transition to net zero and help build a scalable, impactful company.
Robert Huppertz, CEO & Co-Founder of Orbio Earth: “Although there is no silver bullet in the fight against climate change, we believe that the global deployment of groundbreaking technologies like satellite-based methane monitoring, can move the needle on climate action while solving real world customer problems and we are excited to have, with Satgana, a strong and committed partner on our side to do exactly that!”
Methane intelligence
Founded by Robert Huppertz and Jack Angela, Orbio Earth leverages the power of satellite data and data fusion algorithms to provide trustworthy and actionable methane intelligence for emission reductions and benchmarking efforts.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, emitted from a variety of anthropogenic and natural sources. With methane emissions accounting for 30% of current global warming, more than 100 countries worldwide committed to a significant reduction of methane emissions by 2030, establishing methane reductions as a “low-hanging fruit” in climate change mitigation.
Using proprietary algorithms, the software analyzes non-methane-specific remote sensing imagery to create a dataset of high-frequency, multi-scale methane emission detection and quantification for any location on earth. Using the resulting data on asset, company and supply chain levels allows procurement managers, ESG analysts, asset managers and operators to analyze emissions and reduction opportunities, benchmark companies and make more transparent buying decisions for low-methane oil & gas products.
While emission reduction technologies are well established – especially for the oil & gas industry, one key bottleneck to methane reductions is the little amount of reliable emissions data that is available on the global scales of methane-emitting assets. This is what Orbio Earth is setting out to achieve.
By offering data that enables better decision-making, the climate tech innovators aim to help the Oil & Gas, and other methane-emitting industries like waste and agriculture, reduce their methane emissions by 10 million metric tons by 2030.
Romain Diaz, Founder & General Partner at Satgana: “Satgana aims to invest in the next generation of climate-positive startups. With the urgency of curbing greenhouse emissions in the short-term and the global momentum towards tackling the methane challenge, Orbio Earth represents a fantastic opportunity to accelerate the deployment of a high-potential technology solution for our planet to keep the goal of 1.5˚C of global warming within reach.”
