London-based climate fintech, ekko, has successfully closed a $2.5 million funding round led by Fuel Ventures and supported by Sorven Partners, Mishcon de Reya and existing investors.
The raise will supercharge ekko’s ability to bring sustainability to the forefront of financial services by enabling banks, fintechs and payment providers to plug-in planet positive impact into their products.
After securing several successful partnerships, including fintech of the year Volt, Primis, and Stubben Edge, as well as the introduction of the Planet Saver Account in collaboration with Akoni Hub and BLME, this funding round underscores ekko’s significant progress in the climate tech sector.
ekko will deploy this new investment to drive innovation as it continues on its mission to leverage financial technology to deliver meaningful and positive climate impact at scale, and break down the barriers to more sustainable lifestyles. As part of this, ekko will be bringing leading industry experts to support international expansion and product development.
Moving into the next phase of growth, ekko team’s focus is on faster routes for banks, fintechs, and payment providers to better serve and empower their customers, whilst delivering on their climate and environmental objectives. By embedding sustainability into financial products, individuals and businesses can begin to make an impact instantly.
ekko supports a variety of impact partners through its fintech model. Working with leading organisations including Gold Standard, Conservation International, Tusk, and Prevented Ocean Plastic, ekko is supporting carbon compensation, reforestation and conservation projects, and preventing plastic from entering our oceans. By choosing to raise this money at this time, ekko is committing to its mission to act now on climate, turning words into action, whilst remaining commercially strong.
Through the investment from pre-seed and seed specialist Venture Capital firm, Fuel Ventures, ekko joins a formidable portfolio of up-and-coming technology businesses. Partnered with the backing from Mishcon de Reya and Sorven, this demonstrates the growing market demand for climate technology and ekko is ideally positioned to capture that demand and harness market growth.
Speaking on the closure of the funding round, Oli Cook co-founder and CEO at ekko commented: “This fundraise is a recognition of the huge potential of ekko’s business, and the resonance of our mission. Welcoming investors of such calibre as Fuel Ventures, Sorven and Mishcon de Reya, is hugely encouraging. ekko is a very scalable business, and we’re looking forward to seeing the wider influence that this raise will have on our product growth and impact partners, too. The time to act on our current climate situation is now. With this raise, we aim to be the disruptor in the market and enable banks, fintechs, and payment providers to empower their customers to have a tangible and meaningful impact on our world.”
Mark Pearson, Managing Partner & Founder at Fuel Ventures, added: “It’s always been important for us that we invest in tech businesses with the potential to scale quickly. The combination of sustainability and fintech embedded into ekko’s unique value proposition means we can immediately see the opportunity for fast growth. The pressure is on for fintech and banking to adopt more sustainable practices and the ekko leadership team has both the banking credentials and the fintech entrepreneurship to make this happen. We’re excited to help the business push onto the next level.”
Learn more about the latest innovations in the sustainable finance sector at Finextra's annual Sustainable Finance Live conference, taking place on 8 October 2024.