Today we can announce the successful close of our Series A funding round, securing €5,2 million from new investors Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Regeneration.VC, Edaphon, Cerigo Investments, Cerulean, Sabi Fund, an investor represented by Sagana, and others. The funds will accelerate the scaling of Verify; our data verification solution that allows companies to quickly and accurately assess and mitigate risks related to agri-commodity field and physical flow data.
Delivered through a SaaS portal and API, Verify allows companies to identify erroneous, fraudulent and non-compliant data, and get actionable resolutions for risk contributors—in real time. Verify improves the speed and quality of evidence-based decision-making for strategic procurement, sourcing, trade and sustainability teams to lower commercial and reputational risk, and minimise supply chain disruption.
Our strategic intent with Verify is to help companies become more agile in responding to increasingly stringent regulation and international standards on human rights, living income, and the environment—including the European Union's new regulation to curb the EU market's impact on global deforestation and forest degradation (the "EU Deforestation Regulation" or "EUDR"), which came into force on 29 June 2023.
Verify verifies field data in accordance with country of production laws and industry standards such as the European Cocoa Association and European Coffee Federation. It utilises earth observation, ground-truthing and verified institutional reference datasets. It is currently available for 35 origin countries in cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soy, and rubber. Over time, we will expand Verify’s market reach into new commodities and sectors.
Verify is built upon more than a decade of our deep field, supply chain, and commodity experience with complex and smallholder-heavy field data. Its technology already underpins our strategic partnership with ICE Benchmark Administration Limited, in the form of the ICE Commodity Traceability (ICE CoT) service designed to maintain the frictionless trade of physical cocoa and coffee by supporting compliance with EUDR.
Existing Meridia Verify customers will have access to the new Verify portal for beta testing as of July 1 2024. Full commercial launch is scheduled for September 2024.
Thomas Vaassen, Meridia CEO, said, "We are truly grateful for the trust and continued support of our investors, who share our vision. Verify will both help smallholders become more visible in global supply chains, and help larger companies respond quicker and more confidently to regulation and standards—ensuring that valuable energy, time and other resources can be invested beyond compliance”.
“Regeneration.VC invests in Consumer ClimateTech, realigning the value chains of multinational consumer businesses with planetary boundaries. Many products we enjoy today (e.g. coffee, chocolate, soy, palm oil) are associated with deforestation activities. Through investment and ongoing collaboration, we’re excited to support Verify, Meridia’s innovative provenance transparency solution in efforts to prevent further deforestation, protect biodiversity, and rebuild consumer trust", said Michael Smith, general partner at Regeneration.VC.
Matthew Stotts, the managing general partner of Cerulean Ventures, said his firm saw significant potential for Meridia to make a positive impact on the global economy. "Cerulean Ventures is thrilled to partner with the team at Meridia to achieve the next phase of growth for the business and its real-time agri-commodity data verification solution. Having executed dozens of investments in nature tech companies for many years, we've seen an accelerating trend towards sustainable supply chains that align production and consumption with measures to protect biodiversity and halt deforestation."
