The archive · Climate & Energy · Product decision · 2022–2026
Isometric's verification bet: Onfido founder builds the registry carbon buyers trust
Eamon Jubbawy applies Onfido's identity logic to carbon markets: rigorous registry first, then AI certification for industry.
Isometric
What the business is
A London- and New York-based certification company that started as a carbon-removal registry and now sells AI-run verification of industrial claims, from carbon credits to low-carbon steel and fuel.
Starting capital：$25M seed (July 2023) from Lowercarbon Capital and Plural, joined by Niklas Zennström, David Helgason, Ross Mason and Ilkka Paananen.
How it started
Eamon Jubbawy, co-founder of identity-verification company Onfido, studied carbon markets and concluded they worked badly: offset credits were cheap, opaque and frequently worthless, and existing registries 'missed the mark so badly that the only real option was to build another platform'. In 2022 he founded Isometric in London and New York, and in July 2023 it launched with a $25M seed and first project partners including Charm Industrial, Eion, Planetary and Brilliant Planet.
What happened
Isometric built a registry focused on long-duration carbon removal, with its own scientists reviewing projects and a public ledger. In December 2024 it became, per TFN, the first registry accredited simultaneously by integrity bodies ICVCM, ICROA and CORSIA. By 2026 its Certify platform used AI agents to read and cross-check millions of data points - sensors, satellite images, supply chain records, lab results - cutting certification from months to hours, and the company reported contracts for over 16 million tonnes of removal across 200+ projects with customers including Microsoft, Anglo American, JPMorganChase and Boeing.
How it ended up
In June 2026 Isometric raised a $40M Series A led by AVP (AXA as anchor investor), with Plural, Lowercarbon Capital, John Doerr and Walter Kortschak participating, to expand Certify beyond carbon into the broader industrial certification market it sizes at about $350B, and says the round makes it the best-capitalized certifier in carbon markets.
Background
Isometric is the argument that carbon markets do not fail for lack of credits but for lack of trustworthy verification. Eamon Jubbawy, the co-founder of identity-verification company Onfido, looked at offsets in 2022 and saw the same structural flaw he had tackled in identity: humans doing slow, sample-based checks on claims that machines could process completely. Existing registries, he concluded, had 'missed the mark so badly that the only real option was to build another platform'.
Launched in July 2023 with a $25M seed from Lowercarbon Capital and Plural, Isometric started with a science platform that published removal projects' data openly while its own scientists reviewed delivered tonnes, then added a registry for long-duration removal credits. Its business model charged a flat fee to buyers rather than per-credit fees to suppliers, removing the incentive to over-certify, and every certificate was public. First partners included Charm Industrial, Eion, Planetary and Brilliant Planet.
The registry won credibility markers: in December 2024 it became the first to hold simultaneous accreditation from integrity bodies ICVCM, ICROA and CORSIA. By 2026 Isometric reported contracts for more than 16 million tonnes of carbon removal across over 200 projects, with Microsoft, Anglo American, JPMorganChase and Boeing relying on its certification.
In June 2026 Isometric raised a $40M Series A led by AVP - with returning investors Plural and Lowercarbon plus personal cheques from John Doerr and Walter Kortschak - to take its agentic certification platform, Certify, beyond carbon and into the industrial certification market it sizes at about $350B. The open question is whether regulators and buyers will trust a certificate produced in hours by AI agents as much as one that took a year of human auditing.
What has to be true
- Carbon markets had a demonstrated quality crisis: cheap, poorly verified offsets made buyers cynical, so a registry that could credibly say 'verified' had immediate demand.
- The founder brought a proven playbook: at Onfido he built machine-based identity verification to replace slow human checks, the same substitution Isometric applies to industrial claims.
- The flat-fee model aligned incentives - no per-credit income from suppliers meant no reason to certify generously - which made its certificates worth more to buyers.
- Carbon removal was a deliberate rehearsal market: small enough to dominate, visible enough to attract Microsoft-class buyers, and expandable into certification of steel, fuel and energy claims.
What can be applied
When an entire market is distrusted, the scarce asset is verification, not volume; building the honest arbiter first, then expanding to adjacent claims, compounds that trust.
Aftermath
As of September 2026, Isometric is scaling beyond carbon: its June 22 announcement reports more than 16 million tonnes of contracted carbon removal across 200+ projects for customers including Microsoft, Anglo American, JPMorganChase and Boeing, and calls it the largest carbon-removal certifier by contracted volume. The $40M Series A funds Certify, its AI-agent verification platform, as it enters the industrial certification market estimated at about $350B, and the company says the round makes it the best-capitalized certifier in carbon markets.
Sources
- Isometric raises $40M to bring agentic certification to the industrial economy
- Onfido founder raises $40M to kill the 12-month certification bottleneck holding back the industrial economy
- Isometric taps $25M to build a registry and science platform focused on carbon removal
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