Finnish climate software company Kausal has raised €880K in seed funding from an investor consortium, including Innovestor and Spanish impact fund Zubi Capital that supported the women-led European VC Twinco Capital.
The seed funding will help Kausal build on sales and marketing in the DACH region and North America, markets where they have seen a significant need for more efficiency in public sustainability work. Kausal will also develop its platform to make it easier to use for cities and governments of all sizes, providing impact assessment of different policy measures and supporting decision-making.
Helps cities reach sustainable goals
Reportedly, cities account for over 70% of global CO2 emissions. Being responsible for infrastructure planning and numerous services from waste management to education, city administrations have a huge impact on citizens’ possibilities to lead a sustainable life. However, city administrations are typically highly siloed, and a lack of internal communication often leads to different departments being unaware of each other’s actions.
Finnish climate tech startup Kausal aims to change this by helping both city governments and citizens take action toward a more sustainable future. Founded in 2020 by Sonja-Maria Ignatius, Juha Yrjölä, Jouni Tuomisto, and Tero Tikkanen, Kausal sees that cities’ need for transparent progress tracking and internal coordination for their sustainability strategies is large and growing.
The startup helps cities turn their climate goals into action through a digital platform that enables smarter collaboration around key data. Kausal provides SaaS to cities globally, enabling them to set climate targets, create actionable climate plans, and successfully implement them. Its solutions make climate efforts visible to everyone and engage the community by bringing all stakeholders together, improving decision-making.
It serves a range of customers, including small and large public sector organisations in Europe, North America, and Australia. One of Kausal’s clients, the City of Zurich, will publish its first status report on the net-zero climate target towards the end of 2023. The Kausal Paths tool, as an integral part of this report, will be used to transparently and interactively present the development of greenhouse gas emissions in comparison to the target path as well as concrete climate actions.
“The concept of open and close-to-real-time tracking and communication of public sustainability projects is still revolutionary, even though it shouldn’t be. We want to bring everyone involved to the same page for accountable, effective and data-based decision-making. Our new investors and partners have seen how city governments desperately need new tools to track their sustainability progress. Since starting up, sustainability has risen higher and higher in city governments’ agendas, fuelled by the demands of their citizens for action,” said Sonja-Maria Ignatius, CEO and co-founder of Kausal.
“Our investment in Kausal underlines Innovestor’s dedication to a sustainable future. Kausal’s diverse clientele, spanning cities and governments worldwide, actively strives to reduce carbon emissions and enhance climate resilience. Kausal’s platform not only aids its clients in achieving their climate objectives but also has the potential to support a wider range of sustainability goals. The team’s already impressive achievements represent merely the initial phase of the journey as they scale into new markets,” said Myron Seto, Partner at Innovestor.
“We chose Kausal Paths because it is a flexible, easy-to-use and powerful platform that allows us to calculate historical and future emissions, evaluate different climate scenarios and check whether we are on track to reach our net-zero target. Kausal Paths helps us to effectively monitor and communicate our net-zero journey,” added Philippe Stolz, Project manager at the Environmental and Health Protection Office of the City of Zurich.
