Gazelle Ecosolutions: Revolutionizing the Carbon Measurement and Offset Industry (Part 2)

By Aliya Carr and Amod Daherkar; Edited by Sandi Ruddick

The following is a second part to a blog series covering Gazelle Ecosolutions Corp, a UT startup success story. The previous part covered Gazelle’s early ideation days and eventual funding. You can click to read Pt. 1 here. The following blog covers Gazelle’s most recent progress since then, from early 2023 to now.

Gazelle Ecosolutions Corp, a novel, budding, sustainability and conservation-focused startup, started off with nothing but a passion for the environment and a dream in hand. Their eventual 2022 win at SEED, a UT-funded pitch competition, rocketed their dream into reality.

Co-founder and CEO Amod Daherkar spoke about efforts toward Gazelle’s early success. “There are very few venture-backed companies that just develop carbon projects,” Daherkar said. “So at the time, our intention was to simply focus on what we’re good at: implementing methodologies, developing projects, and building relationships with landowners to sustainably manage land.”

Since testing their original prototype, Gazelle has since been deployed across a quarter million hectares in Kalahari, South Africa. Gazelle entered and won the Shell-funded Climate Smart Agriculture Challenge, a competition across several hundred companies, coined as a “call for energy innovation.”

“We were honored to win the competition despite being one of 400 companies,” Daherkar said. “Most of [the companies] had raised significant funding and were further along the entrepreneurial process than a few college students who did some cool stuff in Africa.”

Gazelle then went on to expand their partnership with Shell, entering into a commercial partnership with their nature-based solutions business. Shell supported Gazelle’s R&D efforts to build a robust digital MRV (measurement, reporting, and verification) platform. The collaboration between both companies has opened the doors to other project developers and carbon market participants to support the innovative platform.

“This synergy with Shell’s nature based solutions business marks a significant stride in our collaborative journey to reduce their carbon intensity,” Daherkar said.

Gazelle has since furthered progress and development, taking on many additional carbon projects. The company has raised additional venture funds and obtained new investors that are specifically interested in the advancement of climate technology in South Africa.

Gazelle’s story serves as evidence that passionate changemakers can create sustainable solutions that have the potential to make a real impact on the current and future climate. Gazelle continues to make instrumental progress on developing innovative initiatives.

Daherkar remains committed to Gazelle’s journey and looks forward to what the future holds.

“We are eager to explore the uncharted territories this collaboration will unveil, confident that it will lead us to many more groundbreaking achievements,” Daherkar said.