Lightspeed’s investment in Mitti Labs
Summary
Not only is rice grown in archaic & ancient ways that require huge amounts of water an increasingly precious resource the flooded rice-fields block oxygen from penetrating the soil, creating ideal conditions for bacteria that emit methane, a gas that has ~30x higher climate impact than CO2. The founders came in all muddy straight from their farm pilots to the pitch and spoke so evocatively and passionately about the problem that we decided to dig in.The most critical piece of the tech Mitti has built is the worlds best dMRV for rice GHG emissions. The dMRV sits at the heart of Mitti and we believe owning this IP is critical to influence both the buyer and the regulator as it ensures credit-quality and process adherence. By 2030, the expected demand is 1.5GT, while the current supply is only around 0.25GT, representing a $5 billion opportunity in Asia-rice alone, and we havent even started taking into account the methane markets. Global corporations are aggressively pursuing NetZero goals, with 30% of the top 2000 companies relying on carbon credits to achieve their targets.We believe Mitti has the best team and tech to tackle this opportunity and are thrilled to partner up with our friends at Voyager VC & Overview, and onboard several other climate angels, and partners such as Dr. Reddy Labs, Syngenta, and several others to help build Mittis vision to decarbonize agriculture starting with rice, together.