Borderless Capital, a Miami-based venture capital firm, has closed the PLANETS.Fund, a $10 million fund focused on building a ‘green data’ economy.
The fund will invest in PlanetWatch, a decentralised indoor and outdoor air quality monitoring network built on the Algorand, marketed as the world’s only carbon negative blockchain service.
“PlanetWatchers” or air quality sensor hosts participating in the PlanetWatch network are compensated with PLANETS tokens for streaming air quality data. The PLANETS.Fund is planning to invest the raised capital to deploy a global network of thousands of PlanetWatch air quality sensors across the globe. The Fund will also hold a long term position in PLANETS tokens and equity.
Borderless Capital is anchoring the fund with a $1 million investment and investment firms such as SkyBridge, JUMP Capital, Kenetic Capital, Meld Ventures and Youbi Capital are joining the fund along with individual investors; Robert Matza, Steven Tannenbaum, Joseph Naggar and Deeb Salem (Partners at GoldenTree); Woodrow Levin (CEO of Extend.com), Sam Frankfort (partner at Benvolio Group), Steve Kokinos (CEO of Algorand), Kenzi Wang (Cere Founder and Hyperedge Capital Managing Partner), Sonny Signh (co-founder of BitPay) and individual investors from Genesis Capital.
David Garcia, chief executive & managing partner of Borderless Capital, said: ’We acknowledge that air pollution is one of the world's most serious public health threats, with 9 out of 10 people worldwide living in places where pollutants exceed the guideline limits of the World Health Organisation,"
"This fund was established to accelerate the development of responsible air quality monitoring on Algorand, which will help us mitigate the problem with reliable data and at the same time create value for our investors, for the PlanetWatch network and primarily for the planet Earth.”
PlanetWatch was founded in 2020 as a spinoff of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The data collected by PlanetWatch air sensors is transcribed onto Algorand, creating an air quality repository. The PlanetWatchers network currently has over 20,000 air sensors spread across the globe, with the number rapidly increasing. PlanetWatch went live on Algorand MainNet in August 2020.
Claudio Parrinello, chief executive of Planetwatch, said "We are humbled and grateful to PLANETS.Fund investors for subscribing to our disruptive new vision for global environmental monitoring, where the engagement of ordinary people is instrumental for network deployment and maintenance. With PlanetWatch, people are making their own city smart. We are currently building the largest air quality monitoring network in the world, so Fund resources will be instrumental for speeding up global deployment and engagement.”
