(Update: The cash raised was $5.8 million, according to a regulatory filing at the SEC)
Terrapass, a Menlo Park, Calif. company that lets people calculate the greenhouse gas emissions caused by daily activities such as driving, and then pay to offset them, has raised another round of funding.
Despite no prior backing, the company is growing very quickly, now boasting 50,000 adherents. It has become a leader of the movement to go “carbon neutral,” a trend is gaining adherents elsewhere, including big companies. Both Google and Yahoo, for example want to be carbon neutral. Google is installing a solar power grid to reach that goal. Yahoo recently launched Yahoo Green as part of a similar initiative.
TerraPass charges individuals $29.95 per year or more for “Terrapasses,” depending on their lifestyle. Maveron, of Seattle, led the round, Nth Power, of San Francisco. It also brought on a new chief executive, Erik Blachford, the former CEO of Expedia, and who has also invested in TerrPass. John Cook, of the Seattle PI, has more on Blachford’s move. He is just the latest in a trickle of executives moving to clean-tech (See Amy Vernetti’s VentureBeat column today about this trend).
Terrapass is a six-person startup. The 50,000 number is up from 30,000 earlier this year, and 2,000 last year, when we first mentioned the company. It is making more than $1 million a year. Jay Parkhill most recently mentioned the company in a VentureBeat column about the sector.
Terrapass says it reduces emissions in a number of ways, such as helping with landfill capping and supporting wind power projects. It says that its audited to make sure its methods are sounds. Here’s more about how it works.
Competing services include NativeEnergy and Carbon Fund.
Some critics have emerged, however, saying that these services are essentially offering a license for people to pollute more. They cite examples of carbon neutral companies buying up emissions created by oil extraction projects, thus seemingly making more oil pumping more palatable — but ironically, justifying more of it.
5 Comments
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David G. said:
It’s very innovative to leverage public concerns over environmental issues to raise $$$ to fund alternative energy projects. Question is how much CO2 are actually reduced? Does it make people feel less guilty by emitting more CO2 simply because “we” hypothetically give money to fund projects that offset no less CO2 in the air everyday? And it seems no one talks about who will be the real beneficiaries of the potential profit windfalls from those invested alternative energy projects? Environment or the company? The line is blurring…
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webbeat said:
Investing in Terrapass is like contributing to an NGO…it tastes good but prob best to turn the other way and focus on ideas that are businesses.
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Gal Josefsberg said:
Agreed with Webbeat. This sounds like a good way to feel less guilty, but I doubt it’s as effective as doing some simple things. Keep your $29.95 and carpool to work instead, install some energy efficient appliances, buy local goods and so on. I like the Yahoo Green effort a lot better than this. It at least tried to give me advice while making money. This just feels like a guiltpass to keep driving a BMW.
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Venture Itch said:
It reminds me selling indulgences in 15th century, which is the prepaid full or partial absolution of sins. There is something fishy in commercializing feeling of guilt.
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Peter Gwynne said:
The Environmental Elite=The Enemy of the Poor
Co2 makes up 38-parts-per-100,000 of the atmosphere. I would take mankind 5yrs to get to 39-parts-per.
‘man-made’ global warming is the biggest crock that the tree-huggin’ Leftist counter-culture has ever tried to get over on the consumer.
what’s even more hypocritical is that new CEO Erik Blachford used to run Expedia….CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT MASSIVE CABON EMISSIONS TAXES WILL DO TO THE ‘THIRD-WORLD’ TRAVEL DETINATIONS?!?!!?
HECK, EVERY ‘PREFERRED DESTINATION’ CARIBBEAN ISLAND WILL BE TAXED BACK TO LOOKING LIKE 1962 (2007) CUBA!!
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Venture Midwest » Blog Archive said:
[...] employs an innovative fundraising method to fuel alternative energy projects. As discussed by Matt Marshall of VentureBeat, Terrapass requests an annual fee from individuals and companies seeking to lessen their carbon [...]