Exclusive: GreenPlaces nets $13M to help businesses decarbonize

GreenPlaces closed a $13 million Series A as the software maker aims to reach more restaurants, white-collar offices and other businesses trying to hit new decarbonization goals.

Why it matters: The startup is part of a growing ecosystem supporting companies with emissions cuts across supply chains and service providers.

Details: Redpoint Ventures led the all-equity round, which closed in May.

• Felicis and Tishman Speyer Ventures, the real estate giant's venture arm, participated.
• GreenPlaces declined to disclose the round's valuation.

Of note: "We could be self-sustaining right now if we wanted to be. We’re just continually investing into growth," CEO Alex Lassiter tells Axios. "We raised opportunistically."

• Lassiter's previous startup, a hospitality SaaS called Gather, merged with another in 2020 and was acquired by General Atlantic this spring.

How it works: GreenPlaces built software that's essentially a one-stop-shop for businesses looking to shrink their carbon footprints and their utility bills.

• Its target customer spans 500 to 10,000 employees — big, but a fraction of the average Fortune 500 workforce.

Between the lines: The Raleigh, N.C.-based startup occupies a B2B niche that's mostly dominated by sustainability consultants.

• GreenPlaces says its SaaS is faster, cheaper and more comprehensive.
• Other software startups taking a run at the sector include Greenly and Planetly. The latter shut down in November.

The intrigue: GreenPlaces' approach has proved appealing to franchises, which are increasingly being called upon to follow corporate sustainability goals.

• "They have huge national footprints, but their corporate teams are quite small and less sophisticated," Redpoint Ventures principal Meera Clark tells Axios. "So they offload a lot of this responsibility to a software solution that can be used at the store-level."