Thanks for keeping up with the CREtech Community in the News! For more news about members of the CREtech Community, follow us on Linkedin. 

SINGAPORE, 22 April 2024 —  Accacia, a decarbonisation platform focusing on the Real Estate and Infrastructure sectors, has closed a US$6.5m pre-Series A round led by Illuminate Financial - a specialist VC firm focused on enterprise fintech companies building solutions for the financial services industry with offices in New York, London and Singapore. Southeast Asia based AC Ventures also participated in this round, alongside continued support from early backers Accel and B Capital. 

Real estate and construction activity contribute to about 40 percent of global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The sector lacks robust tools to measure climate risks and define decarbonisation pathways. Founded in 2022 by INSEAD alumni Annu Talreja and co-founders Piyush Chitkara and Jagmohan Garg, Accacia offers an AI-enabled SAAS platform that helps real estate asset managers, owners and developers track their emissions, and design their decarbonisation journey. 

“This funding comes at a crucial juncture as the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and Singapore Exchange (SGX) have announced regulations on carbon emissions’ reporting, underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive and real-time climate risk data. We have already deployed our solution to over 25m sqft of real estate and are poised to leverage this opportunity and scale globally,” said Annu Talreja, Founder and CEO at Accacia. 

Illuminate Financial, with its extensive network of financial services’ industry LPs, has a unique perspective of this evolution where climate risk is becoming a must-have metric for investors. “Measuring and managing climate risks has become imperative for large financial institutions especially on real estate which is one of the most significant and most affected asset classes in their portfolio. With Annu’s background and industry experience in real estate, we felt Accacia is the right fit to take on a leading position in the global real estate decarbonization market and are pleased to partner with the Accacia team,” said Rezso Szabo, Partner at Illuminate Financial.

"While real estate is one of the single largest contributors to GHG emissions, it is also a very hard-to-decarbonize sector given the complexity of value chain emissions (construction vs operations) and the variety of asset uses. Given our deep interest in climate, we were confident that the sector demanded a custom solution designed for nuances of the real estate sector and loved what Accacia has built,” said Helen Wong, Managing Partner at AC Ventures. 

Decarbonisation of real estate is one the biggest opportunities today – a staggering US$18 trillion of investment is required over the next decade to get the real estate industry to net zero. Accacia’s tech platform integrates with existing Property Management, Energy Management and Procurement systems to automate real-time data capturing and tracking, making it the quickest and most affordable solution for real estate companies on their path to net zero. The Real Estate industry has recently become the focus for climate solutions with several large VC funds raising dedicated capital to decarbonise buildings.

For more information about Accacia, please proceed here.

###

About Accacia

Accacia is an AI-enabled SAAS platform that provides Real Estate Developers, Asset Managers and Financial Institutions the key metrics and decisions they need to decarbonize their portfolio. The platform allows customers to measure and benchmark the Transitional Risks on their portfolios, while the AI-enabled recommendation engine suggests decarbonization strategies at the asset and portfolio level.

About Illuminate Financial

Illuminate Financial is a thesis-driven venture capital firm investing in enterprise fintech companies building solutions for the financial services industry. With offices in London, New York, and Singapore, Illuminate’s deep networks and trusted partnerships with major financial institutions for the past decade provide real insight into what the industry needs and helps their portfolio companies achieve their full potential. 

About AC Ventures

AC Ventures (ACV) is a top venture capital firm that invests in tech-enabled businesses focused on Indonesia and Southeast Asia, with over US$500 million in assets under management. The firm empowers entrepreneurs with more than capital by combining operational experience, industry knowledge, deep local networks, and resources. ACV's team has invested in over 120 regional tech companies since 2012. With a team of more than 35 professionals led by Adrian Li, Michael Soerijadji, Helen Wong, and Pandu Sjahrir, it has offices in Jakarta and Singapore.

About Accel

Accel is a leading venture capital firm that invests in people and their companies from the earliest days through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, CrowdStrike, DJI, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, FreshWorks, Jet, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, UiPath and Vox Media are among the companies the firm has backed over the past 35 years.  

About B Capital

B Capital invests globally in extraordinary founders and businesses shaping the future through technology. With more than $6 billion in assets under management and dedicated stage-based funds, the firm focuses on seed to early- and late-stage venture growth investments, primarily in the technology, healthcare and climate sectors. Founded in 2025, B Capital has an integrated, global team across nine locations in the U.S. and Asia. The firm’s value-add platform, together with the consulting expertise of its strategic partner, The Boston Consulting Group, provides entrepreneurs with the tools and resources to scale quickly and efficiently, expand into new markets and build market-leading businesses. For more information, click here.