This Paris Startup Just Raised $1.1M to Bring Back Vanishing Coastlines

Jan de Vries · 2026-07-31

When you think about climate tech, you probably picture sleek solar panels or massive wind turbines. But a small team in Paris is betting that the future of carbon removal lies somewhere far messier: in the mud, roots, and tidal waters of coastal ecosystems. Apolownia, a mission-driven company founded in 2024, just closed its first Seed round at $1.1 million (€1 million). The funding came from LITA, Bpifrance, and a group of business angels. It's not the biggest check you'll see this year, but the company's approach to restoration is turning heads. ### Why Coastal Restoration Matters More Than Ever Here's the thing: companies are running out of excuses. Regulatory pressure is mounting, and frameworks like the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) are pushing businesses beyond just cutting emissions. Now, they're expected to actually remove residual carbon from the atmosphere and restore the ecosystems they've damaged. That's a tall order. And it's creating a huge demand for what the industry calls "high-integrity" carbon projects. These are projects that are transparent, measurable, auditable, durable, and actually additional—meaning the carbon removal wouldn't have happened without the project. ### The Hard Part Nobody Talks About The problem with most carbon projects? They're fragmented. One company handles the science, another manages the local community, and a third does the monitoring. Things get lost in translation, quality suffers, and nobody is really accountable. Apolownia is taking a different route. They're centralizing the entire chain—from identifying the right site to long-term follow-up years down the road. As CEO Théo Derache puts it, "presence on the ground makes the difference." What does that look like in practice? It means combining satellite remote sensing, geospatial analysis, drones, and AI with old-fashioned field work: local teams, community engagement, land-tenure negotiations, and benefit-sharing agreements. It's high-tech and high-touch at the same time. ### BlueRizon: A Flagship Project in Indonesia Their marquee project, BlueRizon, is a mangrove restoration effort in Indonesia targeting more than 4,000 hectares (about 9,900 acres). That's roughly the size of 7,500 football fields. The project is already mobilizing over 3,000 people on the ground, and the company says it could ultimately benefit more than 100,000 individuals. We're talking about climate resilience for coastal communities, erosion control, adaptation to sea-level rise, and local economic development. The official launch is slated for the third quarter of 2026. ### What's Next for Apolownia With this fresh capital, the company plans to scale its model, push BlueRizon forward, and keep investing in science and monitoring tech. The ambition? To become the international benchmark for high-integrity restoration—covering mangroves, seagrass meadows, coastal peatlands, and coral reefs. It's a bold vision. But in a world where companies are scrambling to meet climate targets, having a single point of contact from the field to the final impact measurement might just be the edge that makes all the difference.