climate techGraveyard archive2017–2024

Nori

Nori was one of the first companies to try to build a real market for carbon removal — a Seattle startup that paid farmers to store carbon in their soil through regenerative practices, then sold that stored carbon as credits, with each ton tracked on a blockchain so it couldn't be double-counted. Founded in 2017 by Paul Gambill, Christophe Jospe and Ross Kenyon, it raised about $17.25 million over its life, including a $7 million Series A led by M13 with Toyota Ventures in February 2022, and became a fixture of the early carbon-removal conversation. But the market it was building for never showed up. Voluntary carbon demand stayed thin, buyers grew wary of soil-carbon credits' durability, and the funding environment turned hostile.

Years active

2017–2024

Total raised

$17M

Peak headcount

27

A marketplace for soil carbon

Nori was founded in Seattle in 2017 by Paul Gambill, Christophe Jospe and Ross Kenyon around a deceptively simple idea: farmers who adopt regenerative practices — cover cropping, no-till, better rotations — pull carbon out of the air and lock it into their soil, and someone should pay them for it. Nori built a marketplace to connect those farmers with companies and individuals wanting to buy carbon removal, quantifying the soil-carbon sequestration, issuing credits it called Nori Removal Tonnes, and channeling money directly to growers. It was an unusually direct model in a field crowded with intermediaries, and it made Nori one of the more visible names in the early carbon-removal world.

Carbon credits on a blockchain

Nori's distinguishing bet was to put the whole system on a blockchain. Each tonne of removal was recorded on-chain so that ownership and retirement were transparent and traceable, and a given ton could not be sold twice — double-counting being one of the original sins of carbon markets. The company even planned its own token. In an era when 'blockchain plus climate' drew both excitement and skepticism, Nori leaned into the transparency argument: buyers could see exactly which farm their credits came from and trust that each removal was unique. It was a genuine attempt to fix carbon markets' credibility problem with infrastructure rather than promises.

The money and the marquee round

Over its life Nori raised about $17.25 million. The path there was incremental: a small 2018 Republic crowdfunding round of roughly $146,000, about $4 million in 2020, and the milestone event — a $7 million Series A led by M13 with participation from Toyota Ventures in February 2022, followed by additional capital that brought the total to $17.25 million. For a carbon-removal marketplace, that was real backing from name-brand investors, and it arrived at the market's peak of optimism, when net-zero pledges were multiplying and everyone assumed a flood of corporate demand for removal credits was about to arrive.

The demand that never came

The flood never arrived. The voluntary carbon market — the pool of companies buying credits without being legally required to — stayed stubbornly thin, and it was rocked through 2023 by investigations questioning the integrity of many nature-based credits. Soil-carbon credits in particular drew durability concerns: carbon stored in soil can be released again if a farmer tills the field or a drought hits, making buyers wary of paying for removals that might not last. Nori found itself with a working marketplace, real farmers signed up, and not enough buyers willing to pay. In April 2023 it laid off about ten people, roughly 37% of its staff, citing changing market conditions.

New CEO, same headwinds

The restructuring came with a leadership change. Founder Paul Gambill stepped down as CEO in May 2023, moving to chief product officer before leaving the company in March 2024 while staying on the board, and Matt Trudeau took over as chief executive. But no amount of operational reshaping could conjure demand that wasn't there. The macro picture kept worsening: a punishing fundraising environment for climate startups, persistent doubts about voluntary-market credit quality, and buyers retreating from nature-based removal amid the credibility crisis. Nori was a demand-side casualty of a market that had been talked about far more than it had been funded.

Seven years, then the shutdown

In September 2024, Nori announced it was shutting down after seven years. CEO Matt Trudeau pointed squarely at the market: a stagnant voluntary carbon market and a difficult funding environment that together made a sustainable business impossible. It was a quiet end for a company that had once embodied the optimism of the carbon-removal boom — early, well-connected, technically credible, and building exactly the kind of transparent marketplace the field said it wanted. Nori's failure carried a hard lesson that would echo through the sector: in carbon removal, the binding constraint was almost never whether you could remove or verify the carbon. It was whether anyone would pay enough for it. Nori built the marketplace; the buyers never came.

What worked, what broke

What worked

Built one of the first dedicated carbon-removal marketplaces, connecting buyers directly with farmers adopting regenerative, soil-carbon practices.
Pioneered blockchain-tracked removal credits (Nori Removal Tonnes) designed to make ownership transparent and prevent the double-counting that plagued carbon markets.
Raised about $17.25 million from name-brand investors, including a $7 million Series A led by M13 with Toyota Ventures in February 2022.
Became one of the most visible early voices in carbon removal, helping popularize the idea of paying growers directly for durable soil sequestration.
Channeled real revenue to regenerative farmers and closed high-profile buyer deals with companies including Shopify during the market's optimistic peak.

What broke

A stagnant voluntary carbon market: demand for removal credits stayed far thinner than the net-zero-pledge boom had implied, leaving Nori with supply and no buyers.
Durability doubts around soil-carbon credits — carbon can be re-released by tilling or drought — made corporate buyers wary of paying for Nori's removals.
The 2023 voluntary-carbon-market credibility crisis, with investigations discrediting many nature-based credits, chilled the entire buyer pool Nori depended on.
A brutal climate-tech funding environment that made raising further capital to bridge to profitability effectively impossible.
Forced retrenchment — roughly 37% of staff cut in April 2023 and a mid-life CEO change — that could reshape the company but could not manufacture demand.
A business model wholly dependent on a market that was talked about far more than it was funded, leaving Nori exposed the moment demand failed to materialize.

Sources

Obituary authored Jul 2, 2026 via Sonnet 4.5 + web_search.

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