Five nature tech trends to watch in 2024

Kicking off the new year (and our first public newsletter!) highlighting the nature tech trends we’re excited for this year.

🪸 We’re Superorganism, the first VC for startups that benefit biodiversity. Each month we publish thoughts from the frontline, company updates, and a round-up of new happenings in the nature tech world. Subscribe here.

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Hello, world 🌎

For the past 18 months, we’ve been publishing an internal newsletter on what we’re paying attention to in the world of biodiversity. By popular demand, this month we’re launching this newsletter to the world.

Like all things living, we expect this newsletter to evolve. Feel free to forward the note to others or invite them to subscribe here, and reply with ideas for improvements.

Onto our regularly scheduled programming!

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The Future of Nature Tech: 2024 Trends To Watch 

Fresh off the heels of COP15 for biodiversity, 2023 proved to be a banner year for biodiversity, with new regulations, private investment, and tech startups dedicated to fighting biodiversity loss. What will 2024 hold for the nature tech movement? 

Here are 5 trends we’re watching going into the new year.

Alphabet soup: CSRD, EUDR, TNFD

Three major regulatory trends to watch in 2024 are the implementation of the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and new voluntary commitments to the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). A mouthful! Taken together, these three task corporations with measuring and reporting against their collective nature impacts, throughout their supply chains. In a world where the ecosystem impacts of commodities like cattle, coffee, and timber seldom show up in the cost of goods, measuring and reporting is a potentially transformational first step.

For enterprises trying to work their way through this compliance thicket, we expect most to start with Big 4 or specialist environmental consultants, but already we’ve seen a first crop of startups preparing to surf this wave, especially in the EU. Expect to see a mix of approaches including commodity verticals, accounting, risk, data, land monitoring, and more. Companies specializing in remote sensing, clarifying data and reporting, and clarifying complex reporting requirements will have a busy year as companies are required to begin collecting data for reporting in 2025.

AI applications abound

The rapid improvement of AI in a few short years has led to two major tailwinds for nature tech. First, with ever-improving sensing technology, genomics, and public datasets on nature, we have never had a more data-rich training set for nature-related machine learning. Second, a new crop of technical talent is emerging from the privately-held AI renaissance, leveraging next-generation tools to perform tasks that might have previously taken academic labs years. Taken together, we expect “AI for nature” to be a major theme in 2024 nature tech dealmaking.

Areas we expect most to see the most exciting innovation: genomics, environmental dataset integration, species ID, legal compliance and demystifying regulation, and improving insights from next-gen imaging like thermal, hyperspectral, and 3D.

Tech-tonic shifts

Speaking of better datasets, the dropping prices of DNA sequencing, space launches, and phone components (like cameras and telemetry) are making continuous monitoring possible on a scale never before imaginable. This is particularly relevant for biodiversity, which has historically been expensive and human-powered to monitor. In 2024, as new minds and eyes come in to work on nature, we expect to see two forces at work.

First, in our work we regularly see what conservationists can achieve with tight budgets and technology deployed in some of the world’s harshest regions. While conservation itself may not be the primary customer, adaptation of new technologies in a conservation context can have outsized results for biodiversity. We expect to see significant innovation coming from the center of the venn diagram that is “conservation” and “next-gen tech.” Increasing the area of that overlap is a priority for 2024 and beyond.

Second, continued improvements and lowering costs of frontier technologies will reach levels that enable new conservation use cases and a clearer “why now” for policies and business models that weren’t possible before. Expect the unexpected.

VC winter thawing?

Climate tech has been somewhat resilient to the “VC winter,” but for many companies that raised large rounds at high valuations in ‘20-’22, the end of their runways will start to come up next year. But many economists are forecasting rate cuts through 2024, and eyes are on large private companies like Reddit, Stripe, Klarna, and Turo to potentially kickstart the ailing IPO market. While there is still a lot of volatility, there are hints that VC winter may begin to thaw.

Until then though, we expect a continued strong emphasis on business fundamentals and resets in valuation expectations, with stark cases of fundraising "haves" and "have-nots." No matter what happens in the macroeconomic picture, just as with Microsoft in 1975, Apple in 1976, Airbnb in 2007, and Uber in 2009, important startups will be founded and grow this year.

The nature tech ecosystem 

In 2023, nature tech began to rear a brontosaurus-like head over the treetops. We launched Superorganism as the first VC firm dedicated to biodiversity. At One Ventures announced their $375M fund, targeting 20% to biodiversity. Groups like Nature Tech Collective, Nature4Climate, and the Nature Investor Circle brought together different facets of the ecosystem to exchange best practices and publish reports. And we saw the first large-scale nature tech conference in Bloom 23, with over 500 attendees in its first year. 

We’re biased, but we’re expecting 2024 to dwarf 2023, with more investors, events, initiatives, and growth across the entire category.

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Notes From The Field

Updates from our portfolio companies, and from us at Superorganism

🛰️ Array Labs has been developing and testing a novel satellite coating that can unlock greater microsatellite formation flying control and mitigate the effects of atomic oxygen bombardment in low earth orbit. Read more.

🦠 BluumBio achieved another significant milestone with their microbial pollutant degradation approach: ~70% degradation of PFOA in 48 hours and complete degradation soon after.

🌳 Cambium Carbon has raised $5.3M to accelerate their mission for low-carbon lumber from urban sources, reducing pressures on forests and supporting circular local supply chains.

🌐 Cecil is launching a new initiative to develop industry standards for exchanging nature data within the private sector. They’re kicking off the initiative with legal, academic, and nature market leaders like ImpactAg, Pollination, Conservation International, and more. To learn more about joining, contact founder Alex Logan. 

🍄 Funga kicked off planting of 1M inoculated tree seedlings across nearly 2000 acres in the US South, representing 15x acreage growth over 2022 - supporting healthy forests, soils, and accelerating carbon removal as the trees grow.

🍫 Planet A Foods is taking flight with Lufthansa! This new partnership will serve deforestation-free Choviva on select flights in Europe.

🪴 Rosy Soil is now live in Target! Go grab a bag to save peatlands and draw down carbon while helping your houseplants thrive.

🌿 Sway was one of five startups selected for the InvestPR x Newlab cohort for innovation in sargassum, an invasive seaweed causing problems in the Caribbean. Sway will be testing the integration of sargassum-based compounds into their bioplastic products. 

🏡 Ever think about having a wild, native ecosystem in your yard and wonder what it would take, what it would cost, and who could even do it? Sign up before Jan 31 and Thrive Lot will help you with a free concept plan, eco report, and estimate.

🪸 As for us at Superorganism, in December we…

• Held our annual offsite in DC, including outstanding tours of the National Museum of Natural History and the National Zoo (thanks Brandie and Nick!)

• Attended the climate DAF Salon and the Art of Saving the Ocean at Art Basel Miami

• Joined Toniic for a Catalytic Capital event in San Francisco

• Spoke at Momental Foundation’s Fellowship Match Day in Oakland on how to use venture capital to support biodiversity

• Spent the “Crimbo Limbo” week thrashing out annual goals, reports, content, and strategy for 2024

• Were highlighted in ImpactAlpha as “one of the first venture firms focused on biodiversity and preventing extinction.”

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Ecosystem News

💵 Nature finance

• State of Finance for Nature 2023: Repurposing $7 trillion to combat nature loss | UN Environment Programme

• Where capitalism and conservation meet | Economist

• The Natural History Museum and Bloomberg Team Up to Make the Museum’s Biodiversity Intactness Index Available to Financial Markets for the First Time | Bloomberg

• Clear signs of change in nature finance market, paper says | Carbon Pulse

• Nature tech got $1.6 billion in VC funding last year. It's poised to take off in 2024 | GreenBiz

• 10 days left to share views on biodiversity credits | IAPB

• Four critical elements for asset managers to meet the biodiversity challenge | IPE

• Using AI to guide AstraZeneca Forest Kenya reforestation initiative | AstraZeneca

• Plan Vivo launch pioneering Biodiversity Standard | PlanVivo

• Five Ways to Save Forests | Guardian

• Credit=noun, offsetting=verb; we need more of both for biodiversity | Timothy Vale

🤝 Friends of the Fund

• MRV Collective relaunched as Nature Tech Collective | Carbon Pulse

• Coalition of Philanthropic Funders Unveil More Than $250 Million Ocean Resilience and Climate Alliance to Supercharge Ocean-Based Climate Solutions \ Builders Vision

• A new approach to building sustainable seafood systems | Mitch Rubin

• Standards Make the World - Summer of Protocols | David Lang

• Fauna Bio Announces Strategic Collaboration with Lilly to Discover Novel Obesity Targets Using Convergence™ AI Platform | PR Newswire

• NYC Thrives as an Unlikely Silicon Valley of Climate Technology | Bloomberg

• Why nature’s future underpins the future of business \ FT

• MAD Agriculture is hiring.

🦧 Nature

• America Lost Its One Perfect Tree | Atlantic

  • Crazy about chestnuts? Check out the new Great Chestnut Experiment

• Shimmering golden mole thought extinct photographed and filmed over 80 years after last sighting | Live Science

• Lost tap-dancing spider rediscovered barricaded in a burrow in a small Portuguese town after 92 years | Rewild

• Kiwi Eggs Hatch in the Wild Near New Zealand’s Capital | NYT

• First marine fish declared extinct | Oceanographic

• ‘Grief is a rational response’: the 21 US species declared extinct this year | Guardian

• ‘Could be the end’: Tasmanian red handfish to be removed from wild amid marine heatwaves fears | Guardian

• 2023 Wildlife Photographer of the Year | NPR

• 50 Years of Protecting Endangered Species | The Nature Conservancy

⚡️ Climate

• In a First, Nations at Climate Summit Agree to Move Away From Fossil Fuels | NYT

• Climate change shown to cause methane release from the deep ocean \ Newcastle

• What If People Don't Need to Care About Climate Change to Fix It? \ NYT

• Why regenerative agriculture is only a part of the answer to sustainable food systems | GreenBiz

• You can pre-order Settlers of Catan: New Energies

☄️ Extinction Drivers

• The murderous creature you live with is a murderous creature, says study | NPR

• Study finds plant nurseries are exacerbating the climate-driven spread of 80% of invasive species | Phys.org

• NGOs and Conservationists look into commercializing invasive plants from the wild | MongaBay

• US buildings kill up to a billion birds a year. These architects want to save them | Guardian

• Once They Were Pets. Now Giant Goldfish Are Menacing the Great Lakes | NYT

• EPA orders company to stop making plastic containers that leach toxic PFAS | The New Lede

• How America’s Diet Is Feeding the Groundwater Crisis | NYT

• ‘Not right now’: Key marine species turned off sex by plastic chemicals \ New Atlas

• Why Are Frogs and Other Amphibian Species Disappearing Worldwide? | NYT

📜 Policy

• Ireland could give nature constitutional rights | BBC

• Joe Biden plans to ban logging in US old-growth forests in 2025 \ Guardian

• New ‘Elk Rent’ Program to Pay Ranchers Each Day Herds Are on Their Land | Outdoor Life

🔬 Science

• F.D.A. Approves 2 Sickle Cell Treatments, One Using CRISPR Gene Editing | NYT

• New model explores link between animal agriculture and climate change | Stanford News

• This Flying Frog Spends Its Youth Masquerading as Poop | Scientific American

• Biodiversity communication in the digital era through the Emoji tree of life | Cell

Superorganism backs founders with wild ambition. As the first venture capital firm dedicated to biodiversity, we support nature tech startups at their earliest stage as they build a more abundant world for humans and nature alike. With roots in both conservation and venture capital, we connect economy and ecology by investing in startups that are literally changing the world.