By Gerelyn Terzo, Global AgInvesting Media
Athian, which is behind a platform that connects food companies with farmers, is gaining fresh momentum in its effort to cut emissions across livestock supply chains. Since 2024, the tally of the company’s payments to farmers as a reward for verified emissions through innovative feed ingredients and alternative manure management has reached $18 million. As a further validation of its strategy, the firm has also closed a successful $4 million Series A round, demonstrating both market demand for sustainable practices and confidence in Athian’s tech-powered model for improving food supply chains.
Founded in 2022 by Paul Myer, Athian empowers farmers to implement proven, science-backed protocols by connecting them with buyers downstream in the food supply chain, including consumer packaged goods (CPG) makers, grocers and restaurant chains. These businesses can then use and report these verified results as Scope 3 insets, helping them to advance their sustainability agendas, reward farmers for slashing emissions on the farm, and capitalize on consumer interest in sustainable products.
Scope 3 emissions are indirect greenhouse gases produced along a company’s value chain, outside its own direct operations, like those from suppliers or partners in agriculture. Athian tackles these through insetting, which reduces emissions right within the supply chain while channeling climate and financial returns back to participants. The company’s protocols represent structured guidelines for implementing, measuring and verifying these emissions reductions, drawing on vetted science and outside standards to ensure they’re reliable and adaptable for farmers.
Athian’s Series A round drew a coalition of strategic investors hailing from the wider food value chain. New participants include Ajinomoto Group Ventures, Chipotle Mexican Grill’s Cultivate Next Fund and Mondelēz International via its Sustainable Futures impact investing platform. They join an impressive roster of seed investors including Australian Agriculture Company, California Dairies, Elanco Animal Health, dsm-firmenich Ventures, Newtrient and Tyson Ventures. These backers will help to inform the company’s expansion into additional livestock species and international markets, ensuring its carbon insetting marketplace continues to deliver verifiable, scalable emissions reductions from farm to fork.
The fresh capital will also fuel Athian’s ongoing expansion and rollout of new features, including a wider variety of protocols to give farmers more choices tailored for their unique operations. It will enable what the company described as “cost and claim sharing among supply chain partners to make emissions reductions more accessible to mid- to small-sized companies.” Plus, Athian plans to trial its approach with beef cattle, paving the way for growth into other livestock sectors beyond its U.S. dairy roots.
Athian Founder and CEO Paul Myer stated, “Athian’s original vision was to bring together companies from every step in the food supply chain to deliver a more resilient and sustainable product to consumers. Our new funding partners are helping us achieve that vision by supporting our industry-wide effort to give credit to farmers, processors and food companies for their sustainability efforts.”
As a new backer, Mondelēz’s Susanne Mathis-Alig commented, “At Mondelēz, we are interested in sparking and scaling change. The Athian model has the potential to help us achieve our business goals by measurably addressing key challenges, such as expanding adoption of emissions-reducing practices and delivering ROI to farmers so they can be successful for generations to come.”
Chipotle Chief Strategy and Technology Officer Curt Garner said, “Chipotle’s Cultivate Next investment in Athian furthers our mission to Cultivate a Better World by addressing emissions from areas like animal agriculture and developing innovative solutions that will make lasting change. By 2030, we aim to report a 50% reduction in Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions from a 2019 base year and with tools that incentivize on-farm GHG reductions, it will help companies like ours that are sourcing the materials to achieve these ambitious goals.”
Athian’s platform is transforming how food companies tackle their Scope 3 emissions challenges, delivering a reliable, streamlined and transparent pathway for reporting real progress. By fostering partnerships across the food supply chain, it’s driving meaningful reductions that improve the environmental profile of everyday dairy staple items like milk, cheese and ingredients, thereby benefiting producers, businesses and consumers while bringing them closer to sustainability goals.
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