Victoria Startup Secures Funding to Fuel Green Infrastructure Siting Platform

Determining the optimal location for green infrastructure projects has long been a hurdle to the wider adoption of sustainable commodity production.

Within a landscape of shifting regulations and a complex market, aligning the diverse array of stakeholders required for such projects is a daunting task.

Enter Othersphere, a Victoria-based clean-tech startup, which is designing software to help determine where it is most advantageous to build new production assets for zero- and low-emission commodities such as clean hydrogen.

Othersphere has developed a platform that utilizes data from various sources to help stakeholders determine the ideal geographic location for green infrastructure projects. This tool factors in elements such as power and natural gas costs, the carbon intensity of those resources, available transportation options, demand for low-carbon technology, and a myriad of human and environmental variables.

The objective is clear-cut—to pinpoint profitable and sustainable locales for green infrastructure—and the BC upstart recently raised $3 million in seed financing toward achieving this goal.

“We’re excited to start talking about we are building, beginning news on the funding that will make it possible,” the company stated online.

Othersphere’s seed financing round, which closed in June, was orchestrated by Vancouver-based early-stage cleantech fund Active Impact Investments with additional support from Thin Line Capital, KDX, and Keiki Capital.

“Building on existing support from Breakthrough Energy , Google, and National Research Council Canada, together we can accelerate global industrial decarbonization to deliver sustainable, equitable prosperity,” reads a statement from Othersphere. “We’re looking forward to the road ahead.”

The Canadian company’s financial backing attests to the promise of its simple solution to a complex challenge.

“Their platform lowers costs for customers while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, all of which accelerates the development and adoption of low emissions commodities,” observes a statement from Active Impact Investments.

If its backers are to be believed, Othersphere is poised to make an impact in the sustainable commodities market with seed funding a pivotal step forward and a finished product anticipated by the end of the year.