Chestnut Carbon gets $160M to turn old farms into forests

Nature-based carbon removal startup Chestnut Carbon has raised $160 million in Series B financing, the company told TechCrunch. The startup buys marginal and degraded farmland, plants them with native trees, and harvests the resulting carbon credits.

Carbon credits have become a hot commodity, especially among tech companies looking to offset skyrocketing emissions caused in part by the breakneck expansion of data centers serving cloud and AI customers.

The new round included investment from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Cloverlay,…