TreeCard, the provider of a wooden Mastercard debit card that channels profits from merchant surcharges into reforestation programs, has raised US$5.1 million in a funding round led by EQT Ventures. Source: Timberbiz
The round also included participation from Seedcamp and Episode 1, as well as a number of well-connected Angel investors including GoCardless founder Matt Robinson and Charlie Delingpole of ComplyAdvantage. Eco-friendly search engine Ecosia bought a 20% stake in TreeCard last year for £1 million.
The wooden debit card comes with an app that lets users track spending, split bills with friends and monitor how many trees have been planted as a result of user spending.
Operating over the Mastercard network and using back-end card processing services from Synapse, TreeCard acts as a fully-fledged debit account, able to receive top-up from a user’s regular bank account, with support for chip and PIN, contactless transactions and mobile payments.
TreeCard makes money from the interchange and promises to invest 80% of profits into sustainable causes, including reforestation in partnership with Ecosia.
“We wanted to create a financial product with a difference, one that was far removed from greenwashing and allowed customers to improve the impact of their spending without drastically changing their habits,” Jamie Cox, CEO and co-founder said.
“As a multi-stage fund, EQT Ventures’ presence across both Europe and the US provides the perfect springboard for us to launch into international markets”.
The company currently has a waiting list of more than 140,000 people for the launch of the card, which is due to be released in the next few months.
