From left to right: Doconomy chief creative officer and co-founder Johan Pihl and CEO and co-founder Mathias Wikstrom.
Dokonomi
Doconomy, a Swedish fintech startup focused on climate change, told CNBC on Thursday that it has raised 34 million euros ($36.9 million) from leading European banks, including UBS and Commerzbank.
Doconomy, which provides tools to help bank customers measure the carbon footprint of their daily spending, raised money in a Series B funding round co-led by UBS Next and CommerzVentures, the venture capital arms of UBS and Commerzbank, respectively.
Credit ratings agency S&P Global joined as a new investor, while existing shareholders Motive Ventures, PostFinance and Tenity also participated.
Doconomy, founded in Sweden in 2018, 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 associated with financial transactions.
One of the company’s tools is AIand Index, a cloud-based service for banks that helps customers convert each transaction into a corresponding CO2 footprint. The index is used by more than 100 financial institutions in more than 40 countries.
Doconomy CEO and co-founder Mathias Wikstrom said in an interview with CNBC that Doconomy plans to use the new funds to promote business expansion in North America and launch new products.
“Going forward, we want to enable every bank around the world to engage their customers in the bank’s ESG (environmental, social and governance) efforts,” Wikstrom said. “We see the connection between the E and the S, environment and society. .”We cannot isolate these two different streams.”
Wikström said he was “very pleased” to see partnerships with firms such as UBS and Commerzbank, describing them as “an alliance of winning dollars and brains to get this problem under control.”
climate politicization
News of Doconomy’s latest funding follows the company’s February 2023 acquisition of Dreams Technology, a platform that uses behavioral science to improve customers’ digital engagement and financial well-being.
Wikstrom said Doconomy’s valuation in the Series B round has not changed from the price at which it raised money in the Series A round, from which it raised cash Citibank venture capital, MasterCardand IKEA parent company IKEA.
Doconomy’s growth story is not without its challenges. Recently, the company 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, Doconomy
Last week, Peterson published a post on social media platform
The Canadian psychologist has become famous online for criticizing so-called political correctness and is a noted skeptic who has described climate change as a “get-out-of-jail-free card for idiot socialists”. He once viewed rising greenhouse gas emissions as a positive factor in making the planet “green in the driest areas.”
Climate scientists say that’s misleading because it doesn’t take into account the negative impacts on plants and ecosystems caused by droughts, wildfires and heat waves exacerbated by global warming.
Wikstrom told CNBC that Peterson’s attack on his company “shows that we need to educate a lot of people.”
“Fear can lead to frustration, frustration can lead to protests, protests can lead to violence, and violence can lead to harm,” he told CNBC.
Wickstrom said he hopes the more Peterson and other climate skeptics keep banging the drum, the more “empty” their sentiments will end up sounding.
“Look at what’s happening in Hawaii, Canada, France, Spain, Greece – we have floods, we have fires, we have a lot of concerns right now,” he said. “It’s no longer really hurricane season, it’s fear season.”
Climate fintech is a niche area of fintech that has attracted high investor interest as governments around the world push companies to achieve ESG goals and reduce 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 catalyzing innovation to provide the data and actionable insights clients need to make informed choices about their investments.” , and achieve the changes they want to see.