Carbon accounting startups peaked in 2021, raising over $5 billion from investors. The rise of carbon accountingThere are around 50 European carbon accounting companies, many of which didn't exist before 2019, according to Insider's own research. Venture capitalists are typically bullish on SaaS because it can scale quickly with few overheads, which is the promise many carbon accounting companies make. Carbon accounting business models often fell short of true SaaS scalability and instead relied on employees doing tasks manually, despite touting automation, investors said. The next generation of carbon accounting companies should be hyper-focused on one niche – for example, accounting for methane in the agricultural industry or water use.

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Persons: Niklas Kaskeala, Antero Vartia, grimly, Kaskeala, That's, Namrata Sandhu, Luca Schmid, ClimateTrade, Germany's, Australia's Envizi, EcoOnline, Germany's Planetly, Buyers aren't Organizations: Sequoia, Octopus Ventures, Cherry Ventures, Balderton, Investors, Venture, Germany's TeamClimate, Watershed, IBM, Sage, SoftBank, KPMG, Enterprise, SAP, Oracle Locations: Helsinki, Finnish, Coatue, Europe, Zalando, London