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Exclusive: Persefoni raises $50M, led by TPG, for AI in carbon accounting

Alan Neuhauser
Illustration of an abacus with beads made from CO2 molecules.

Illustration: Gabriella Turrisi/Axios

Carbon accounting firm Persefoni has raised $50 million in the first close of a Series C round led by TPG, Axios has learned exclusively.

Why it matters: The raise makes Persefoni one of the most well-funded carbon accounting providers as it looks to expand the use of AI in its software.

Driving the news: The Tempe, Arizona-based startup is raising its latest round at a $300 million valuation.

  • TPG Rise led the first close.

Catch up fast: Carbon accounting and management providers like Persefoni develop software that enables businesses to track their emissions.

  • That insight is crucial to meeting corporate sustainability goals or government disclosure mandates. It's also enormously complex.

What's happening: Persefoni is among a handful of companies that have raised major rounds for software to streamline that accounting.

Meanwhile, the company is deploying AI systems powered by a "generative pre-trained transformer," or GPT.

  • "AI requires years of research and a hell of a lot of data," CEO Kentaro Kawamori tells Axios. "In the last year we amassed enough data."

Of note: Clearvision Ventures, NGP, Prelude Ventures, Parkway Ventures, The Rice Investment Group, Bain, EDF, Alumni Ventures, and ENEOS Innovation Partners joined the funding round.

What we're watching: Persefoni is eyeing an IPO no sooner than 2026, citing the macroeconomic chill.

  • "We've always had ambitions to take the company public," Kawamori says.
  • The company expects to turn a profit in the next two years.

1 last thing: The round pushes Persefoni's total amount raised past $153 million. The other big kahuna in carbon accounting, Watershed, has raised $139 million, a spokesperson tells Axios.

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