Vilnius-based green investment platform FOROS has raised a €1.2 million investment round led by Iron Wolf Capital, 70 Ventures and CoInvest Capital, as it seeks to accelerate the development of its forest investment and management products, and to expand to Estonian and Finnish markets.
The platform offers features that allow estimating the value of the forest, buying and selling of the forest land via digital forest auctions, and ordering of the sustainable forest management service called Foros Grow which ensures that trees can grow healthier, bigger and taller through selective logging to weed out the weak ones and give more sunlight for others to grow. The new investment will allow creating new platform features such as the forest carbon impact calculator.
The company expects strong growth in the forestry industry due to the fact that forests are a great hedge against inflation and due to strong demand for timber. The EU has launched ambitious plans to expand and accelerate timber construction for public sector spaces.
“The funding and the expansion of the team of developers was a strategic decision following the last three years of hard work and dedication from the entire team.”
Foros cofounder and the CEO Justas Kaveckas
“We have grown from a forest auction house to a green fintech with customers in Lithuania and Latvia – markets known for their fast innovation adoption,” he said.
Foros has chosen to focus its efforts on the Nordics in the first stage. “Unlike other green fintechs that have chosen to expand vertically, Foros decided to go deep in and create a 100% digital, innovative and transparent alternative to the traditional forestry industry. We aim to open up sustainable forest investments and management for wider groups of people and to allow them to see their climate impact from their forest portfolio,” said Kaveckas.
