"We Got Funded!" UAE-Based Climatetech Startup Zeroe Raises US$2.2 Million Seed Round Zeroe provides enterprises with tools and insights to not only understand and reduce their carbon footprint but also to align with sustainable finance frameworks.

Zeroe, a UAE-based climatetech startup focused on decarbonizing corporate enterprises, has raised US$2.2 million in an oversubscribed seed round.

The funding round was led by Owen Rahadiyan, an Indonesian angel investor, which is expected to open doors within the Southeast Asian market for Zeroe.

Launched in early 2023 by Farouk Jivani and Ali Najafian, Zeroe was founded on a mission to help facilitate decarbonization and a simplified transition to net zero for companies in the region.

"The first step of any decarbonization journey for an organization is the comprehensive measurement of emissions," says Jivani, while speaking with BIZ Experiences Middle East. "Organizations make financial decisions based on their accounts, and decarbonization decisions are not different; they should be based on a source of truth. Zeroe enables organizations to comprehensively account for their emissions, and automate the flow of information from internal systems in as little as eight weeks, providing a platform for effective decision-making. With this information, organizations can then access and allocate the right amount of capital in the right areas to decarbonize."

Image courtesy Zeroe.

Zeroe's software as a service (SaaS) platform thus aims to enable companies to comprehensively measure carbon emissions, and simultaneously report on decarbonization performance to their stakeholders. The startup's presence in the UAE market has become especially pronounced following the conclusion of the 28th edition of the Conference of the Parties (COP28) hosted by the country.

"The urgency to act on climate change has never been greater, and it will exponentially increase in the coming years," Jivani adds. "This investment is thus a testament to our commitment to driving tangible change. We're here to accelerate the enterprise decarbonization journey, and unlock climate finance to fund the transition."

Zeroe provides enterprises with the tools and insights needed to not only understand and reduce their carbon footprint, but also to align with sustainable finance frameworks- the latter, as per the co-founding duo, is a critical aspect in the transition towards sustainable impact. As such, with fresh capital at its disposal, Jivani and his team will hope to allocate the funds towards strengthening its presence in the market.

"Over the next 12 months, we are laser-focused on deploying our software to organizations in our target markets in the GCC and Southeast Asia, particularly in the UAE and Indonesia, where we are already seeing traction," Jivani says. "We invested the past year in building a product that meets enterprise organization needs, and we'll double our investment in this space to ensure our product solves the problems of our customers and can be rapidly deployed to drive effective decision-making. We also plan to build out further how artificial intelligence (AI) supports organizations in their decarbonization journeys, reducing the need for in-house emissions expertise, which we see as a barrier to decarbonization globally."