Flowcarbon refunds investors after delays in carbon credit token launch: report

Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann’s climate tech startup Flowcarbon has reportedly begun refunding investors after failing to launch its long-awaited Goddess Nature Token (GNT).

According to a Forbes report earlier this week, the company has struggled to make its vision of representing carbon credits a reality.

The project raised $38 million from token sales

Flowcarbon initially raised $70 million in 2022, with big investors like Andreessen Horowitz backing the project. Its Series A also included contributions from General Catalyst and Samsung Next, as well as prominent Hollywood producers Sam and Ashley Levinson.

At least $38 million of the money raised came from GNT sales, though it’s still unclear if that figure includes retail buyers.

The idea was to create a token backed by carbon credits, which represent one metric ton of carbon dioxide removed or prevented from entering the atmosphere. The cryptocurrency would have been traded on the Celo blockchain, which had bought $10 million worth of GNT to offset its own emissions.

However, it recently emerged that the startup has returned money to investors after long delays in realizing its plans. He blames the turn of events on difficult market conditions and the rollback of carbon records.

According to sources cited in the Forbes report, those who had invested in the company were required to sign a waiver, which released them from any claims and included non-disclosure terms.

Flowcarbon blames the problems on the tokenization ban

In response to questions from Forbes, the project confirmed that it has been processing refunds since last year. However, he chose not to make the repayments public, instead keeping communication with his backers private.

As noted in the post, Flowcarbon faced the same obstacles as several other cryptocarbon initiatives that came before it. For example, in 2021, Toucan and KlimaDAO tokenized millions of retired carbon credits, raising concerns about double-counting of records.

In response, Verra, one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas credit organizations, banned the tokenization of retired credits the following year. The decision then became an impediment to Flowcarbon’s token generation plans, causing frustration among its financiers.

Interestingly, despite the ongoing refunds, the startup has maintained a normal attitude. Their latest social media post announces their upcoming CarbonSmart Summit, scheduled for September 23rd. One of the key topics to be discussed at the event appears to be carbon finance.

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