The €3.9 million seed round for Clearly, a climate intelligence platform that uses AI to give fleet managers vital and unique trip-level energy and carbon information, has closed. Along with well-known angel investors Lord Nash and Margaux Primat, the round was led by Pace Ventures and Nine Realms and included participation from current mobility investors Mobilion, Next Gear, and M1720.
The company plans to use the fresh investment to expand its portfolio of exclusive AI capabilities and improve its current product offering. Obviously, in order to meet the demand for its product on a global scale, it will also be expanding its personnel.
One of the biggest keys to reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is to decarbonize supply chains, as the transportation sector is responsible for 25% of world emissions. According to the UN, road transportation alone has to spend $1.75 trillion annually to achieve net-zero goals. For this reason, more than half of CEOs are trying to increase data visibility in order to more effectively cut emissions.
Clearly addresses this issue by giving fleet managers, logistics operators, and other supply chain players the vital information they require to make decisions in real time, which can dramatically increase operational and financial efficiency. By integrating and blending data from a broad range of sources, including vehicle movement and performance (GPS, tracking, IoT), operations (weight, packages), assets (vehicle type, tires), energy (fuel, electricity), and more, the company’s proprietary technology overcomes the limitations of existing approaches and enables global corporations to achieve net zero targets. These real-time analytics assist operators in determining which decarbonization programs are the most successful, helping them choose them, and making funding more accessible for them.
“Decarbonizing supply chains is not a new challenge, but one of the largest hurdles for businesses has been accessing and analysing comprehensive data, as a direct result of supply chain complexities and the nature in which this data has been collected up until now. We saw that by using our unique approach to collect, normalize, and blend supply chain data, we could improve its interoperability and use it to provide actionable insights on transportation emissions down to the level of individual trips and packages. “We are deliberately hardware-agnostic, which means our platform is compatible with any data source, overcoming the significant initial challenge of data acquisition.”
There has never been a more pressing need for businesses to take action because transportation emissions are rising. According to the International Energy Agency, transportation emissions are expected to rise by 60% by 2050 if considerable action is not taken. This would result in extreme weather, rising sea levels, ecosystem disturbances, health hazards, and unstable economies.
Marius Swart, a partner at Pace Ventures, said, “This space is expanding rapidly and we were impressed by the significant demand from large corporations and the financing sector for Clearly’s product. As the transport sector transitions to using greener technologies, we see the need for data-driven procurement and AI-enabled operational decision making broadening at a fast pace. Clearly, itmaking sustainable transportation more than just a choice for its customers; it’s making it a competitive advantage.”
Christy McCaig, a partner at Nine Realms, continued, “Unlike other tools, Clearly offers actionable insights to help fleet operators achieve their goals in the most commercially viable way.” “We were impressed with the team and their early traction with enterprise customers, and we’re thrilled to support them in their next stage of growth.”
