• HackSummit
  • Posts
  • 🌳 120 Talents Scaling MRV for Biodiversity

🌳 120 Talents Scaling MRV for Biodiversity

Hear from 10 industry experts on the potential of AI, robotics, IoT sensors, satellite monitoring and geospatial datasets for biodiversity MRV

Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth.

But we’re facing a crisis. Over the past 50 years, the average size of monitored wildlife populations has shrunk by 73%. And human behaviour is driving this loss.

This urgency sets the stage for the UN Biodiversity Conference COP16, taking place in Cali, Colombia, from October 21 to November 1.

As one of the World’s most biodiverse regions, it’s a fitting location for governments, Indigenous leaders, businesses, and environmentalists to meet and will tackle the critical challenges of habitat loss and species protection, to transform the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework into real-world action.

Decisions made here will define the future. And implementing these commitments requires global collaboration.

To achieve this, we also need to build trust and track the benefits of biodiversity efforts.

Enter Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV). 

A multistep process that seeks to prove the positive impact of a climate or biodiversity project by measuring the positive impacts and biodiversity benefits of protection, restoration, and regeneration. 

Scroll on to get to know some of the pioneers behind MRV for Biodiversity and their take on using data analytics tools to measure biodiversity impact and progress

90 MRV Startups to Watch

We mapped 90 MRV Startups to watch. Head this way for the full list.

The Role of Data Analytics

How can data analytics tools be used by governments and corporates to assess their impact and measure their progress towards restoring biodiversity?

We caught up with seven biodiversity experts, investors and startups for their take.

Tracking Progress

"Corporates need to recognize the importance of biodiversity to their economic activity. Understanding their reliance on nature can mitigate risks like supply chain disruptions. Data analytics tools enable them to monitor their positive and negative impact, track progress, and demonstrate efforts in biodiversity restoration while avoiding potential litigation," shares Dr. Philipp Staudacher, Head of Portfolio, Innovate 4 Nature

Increasing Confidence

“The new wave of nature data analytics allow government and corporate reporting to go beyond measuring only land use changes or narrative data points, to significantly increase confidence in impact and progress measurements which meaningfully contribute to conservation and restoration goals under the GBF,” notes Cameron Dowd, Co-Founder and CTO at Inverto Earth

Measuring Impact

“Governments and corporates can use data analytics tools to quantify biodiversity impact, assess natural capital use, and measure progress in restoration efforts. These tools can provide continuous monitoring of key indicators, enable impact forecasting, and support decision-making for nature-positive strategies, in line with regulatory demands and impact goals,” says Dr Sonja Stuchtey, Co-Founder at The Landbanking Group

Meeting Regulatory Standards

“Data analytics tools empower governments and corporations to quantify their ecological footprint and benchmark progress towards biodiversity goals. By leveraging our data, these entities can measure restoration efforts, monitor ongoing projects, and meet regulatory standards, ultimately ensuring that their initiatives are both effective and sustainable. To quote Peter Drucker, ‘What gets measured gets managed,” explains Daniel White, CEO and Co-Founder at Gentian

Overcoming Complexities

“Data metrics for biodiversity are far more complex than for carbon, as they must account for diverse species and ecosystems, yet much of this data is either not being collected yet. Only with accurate ground-truth data can intelligence be applied to guide restoration efforts and track biodiversity improvements effectively,” highlights Julius Strauss, Associate at FoodLabs 

Tracking Direct and Indirect Impact

“Data analytics tools will help governments and corporates to track their direct and indirect impacts on biodiversity, throughout their organizations, activities and supply chains. Like carbon reporting, the aim is to get the equivalent of a biodiversity footprint by quantifying the company’s contribution to environmental pressures (soil, water, carbon, land use, plant and animal species…), assessing and managing nature-related dependencies, opportunities and risks. Monitoring its biodiversity footprint will enable the company to comply with regulations, disclose its nature objectives and adapt its business to become nature-positive,” says Xavier Lorphelin, Managing Partner at Serena

Ensuring Transparency

“Data analytics tools are only as good as the data they have to work with, otherwise we're back to the old adage of "garbage in, garbage out." Yes, AI will change the world. But it can only work if we have the ability to feed it with accurate nature data, comprehensively collected, and fairly shared (ideally as a public good!) and transparently handled to maximize trust,” tells Gilad Goren, Executive Director of Nature Tech Collective

Enhancing Restoration 

“Data analytics tools enable governments and corporations to assess environmental impacts and track biodiversity restoration by analyzing land use and ecosystem health. They support government-level initiatives like the EU's 30x30 plan by providing essential data to monitor conservation targets, and enable efficient management of extensive land footprints, particularly in sectors like agriculture, facilitating informed decisions and enhancing biodiversity restoration efforts,” adds Romain Fau, CEO and Co-Founder at Kanop

Working with Local Communities

“Analytics and AI are important for nature restoration but not a silver bullet.  It is important to remember that many tools are developed by companies in high-income countries, but applied to nature and biodiversity in the Global South. It is critical to consult local communities in the development and deployment of these tools. Not doing so risks reinforcing existing social inequalities, neglecting community needs, and worsening the digital divide. After all these local communities have often been custodians of Nature for thousands of years!” concludes Ollie Potter, Founder at NatureTech Memos

7 MRV for Biodiversity Startups in Focus

MRV for biodiversity plays an important role in not only proving the efficacy of nature-based solutions, but also in helping researchers and project owners track and understand the processes behind them.

“This technology can enable the adoption and deployment of high-integrity biodiversity credits that could unlock much greater private and public funding to support biodiversity restoration and conservation projects. It will also help corporations to increase traceability within their whole supply chain, more accurately measure the direct and indirect impacts of their business on biodiversity and, consequently, report on their nature-related disclosures,” says Xavier Lorphelin, Managing Partner at Serena

Get to know 7 startups scaling new technologies for MRV:

🇬🇧 Gentian
Founders: Thomas Fenal, Daniel White, Dusty Gedge
What: Uniquely combining advanced AI with high-resolution satellite imagery.
How: Gentian, delivers ecosystem insights with ‘unmatched’ precision, independently verified against manual surveys. By mapping vegetation from space with high precision, their system delivers crucial insights into habitat types and conditions. Combined with AI, this technology amplifies their ability to identify, predict, and analyze ecological patterns, providing invaluable data for swift, informed action to protect biodiversity and mitigate risk.

🇩🇪 Hula
Founders: David Schmider, Florian Geiser
What: Providing data on biodiversity throughout the entire year with a scalable monitoring approach
How: Hula’s self-sufficient IoT sensor network captures proprietary in-situ data which is blended with satellite information to combine the best of both worlds and ensure the required accuracy. By replacing the process of data acquisition and interpretation with IoT and AI, Hula can remove the human in the loop to cut costs and scale the value for our customers.

🇨🇭 Inverto Earth
Founders: Cameron Dow, Jürg Germann
What: Site level data on species presence and close proxies for abundance, which can be combined with lower resolution data sets such as satellites to drive insights at large scales.
How: Inverto Earth uses robotics such as drones to collect samples and data consistently from difficult to reach areas, to allow local operators to cover larger areas in shorter times.

🇫🇷 Kanop
Founders: Romain Fau, Louis de Vitry
What: Combining advanced AI, satellite imagery and in-situ data to provide scalable biodiversity metrics to monitor conservation and restoration initiatives.
How: Kanop tracks a wide range of indicators such as canopy cover, biomass, and biodiversity indices derived from habitat mapping and tree species classification, at the site level.

🇩🇪 Leeana
Founders: Denis Frischmann, Lewis Pierson
What: Helping businesses meet the biodiversity reporting requirements of the CSRD, particularly under ESRS E4.
How: Leeana streamlines geospatial datasets and integrates this data with other key factors, such as a company’s economic activities and impact drivers. This combination ensures that businesses don’t just receive a list of nature data points—they get a holistic overview of their biodiversity footprint, empowering them to take meaningful action.

🇬🇧 Pivotal
Founders: Cameron Frayling, Zoe Balmforth
What: Combining tech-powered in-situ data capture, remote sensing, and AI-powered analytics verified by remote experts, Pivotal generates primary data for species, habitats, and ecosystem functions.
How: Pivotal uses proprietary local AI models, set up and trained for every new ecoregion they work in. These models detect, cluster, and sample ecosystem features. Crucially, they then have a global network of ecological experts who verify and quality check results in their remote platform, bringing huge advantages in transparency and confidence of results compared to off-the-shelf models.

🇩🇪 The Landbanking Group 
Founders: Sonja Stuchtey, Martin Stuchtey
What: Using AI-backed MRV tools for granular analysis of natural capital. 
How: The Landbanking Group employs machine learning models fed with satellite observations and ground data to predict natural capital outcomes. This approach enables cost-effective, precise assessment and monitoring of biodiversity, water, and carbon across diverse landscapes.

Where Biodiversity Meets DeepTech

Creating disruptive technologies for species restoration, endangered species protection, and ecosystem repopulation, Colossal Biosciences is pioneering the use of CRISPR technology for de-extinction, starting with the Woolly Mammoth.

Leading the breakthrough use of CRISPR for de-extinction, Dr Beth Shapiro is Colossal’s Chief Science Officer with over two decades of pioneering ancient DNA research at the University of Oxford, Penn State University, and the University of California Santa Cruz.

Next up, Dr Beth Shapiro will be joined by Kevin Webb of Superorganism for an intimate Fireside Chat at the HackSummit. Listen in on the deep discussion to learn how cutting-edge science and technologies can restore earth to a healthier state while also solving future economies and biological necessities.

Over 500 financiers, founders, industry experts and operators are heading to the HackSummit this December. Join them in New York to find your next investment opportunity or cross-industry collaboration.

120+ MRV-for-Biodiversity Companies

We tracked over 120 companies in the space. Get to know the players working on solutions across MRV for biodiversity, and if there’s someone we’ve missed you can quickly add them here.