Pachama brings technology to the notoriously opaque world of forest carbon credits. The company uses satellite imagery, aerial lidar, and machine learning to measure how much carbon a forest actually stores, track changes over time, and verify that conservation or reforestation projects are delivering the climate benefits they claim. It’s essentially a trust layer for the voluntary carbon market.
Traditional carbon credit verification relies on periodic ground surveys — expensive, slow, and easy to game. Pachama’s platform processes petabytes of remote sensing data to build detailed 3D models of forest biomass. These models can detect deforestation events, measure tree growth rates, and flag discrepancies between what a project promises and what the forest actually does. Buyers get a dashboard showing real-time project performance backed by hard data rather than paperwork.
The company works on both sides of the market. For project developers, Pachama offers tools to design credible carbon projects and get them verified faster. For buyers — including companies like Microsoft, Salesforce, and SoftBank — the platform curates a marketplace of vetted projects with transparent monitoring. Founded by an Argentine team and based in San Francisco, Pachama has evaluated millions of hectares of forest across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. The company employs around 100 people and has raised over $79 million from investors including Lowercarbon Capital and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
