Sustainability data startup EcoVadis Inc. today announced that it has closed a $500 million funding round led by private equity firm Astorg and BeyondNetZero, the climate investing arm of General Atlantic. 

The Series C round is described as the largest ever raised by a software-as-a-service startup in the sustainability data segment. Since launching in 2007, EcoVadis has raised a total of $735.5 million from investors.

“We believe EcoVadis has all the critical elements to make global impact and a meaningful contribution to the net zero transition, including a high-quality business model, strong leadership, innovative technology and a bold vision for driving ESG-oriented transformations across supply chains and industries,” said BeyondNetZero Managing Director Rhea Hamilton.

The company, which has offices in New York and Paris, provides a platform that helps organizations evaluate the sustainability of their business operations. A company can also use the platform to gain insight into the sustainability efforts of suppliers. EcoVadis says it works with more than 95,000 organizations including Amazon.com Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Salesforce Inc. and other major enterprises.

EcoVadis evaluates a company’s sustainability efforts based on 21 different criteria. The methodology with which the startup carries out evaluations is supervised by a scientific committee that comprises experts from industry and academia. Based on its assessment of a company’s operations, it generates a score that executives can consult to measure the effectiveness of corporate sustainability efforts.

The company’s service highlights areas where a company should improve its sustainability program. The startup’s platform tracks how an organization’s performance changes over time, as well as how it compares with industry peers. To help organizations speed up their sustainability initiatives, EcoVadis also provides access to education resources through a tool known as the EcoVadis Academy that debuted last November.

According to the startup, companies can use its platform to evaluate not only their own sustainability efforts but also gain insight into the business practices of suppliers. EcoVadis says the platform carries out the supplier evaluation process more efficiently than traditional approaches.

Usually, organizations measure supply chain sustainability by collecting data about their suppliers’ business operations through questionnaires. In a large company, collecting and processing sustainability questionnaires can require a significant amount of manual work. EcoVadis says its platform is up to 80% more cost-effective than manual approaches.

By reducing the amount of effort involved in such evaluations, the startup also makes it simpler for companies to track how key sustainability metrics change over time. This data can help organizations implement improvements more effectively. According to EcoVadis, more than 72% of suppliers that use its platform improve their sustainability score over time.

EcoVadis will use the new $500 million round to add more artificial intelligence features to its platform. Another portion of the capital will go toward making acquisitions. According to VentureBeat, the startup is already in negotiations to acquire a number of companies and plans to integrate their technologies into its platform.

“This investment is validation of EcoVadis’ model for scaling impact across global value chains, despite the pandemic, geopolitical or financial headwinds,” said co-founder and co-Chief Executive Officer Frédéric Trinel. “We continue to experience record demand as more companies are empowered to integrate the planet and society into their business operations.”

A number of the enterprise technology market’s largest players also offer software tools that can help companies advance their sustainability initiatives. In March, Amazon Web Services Inc. debuted a tool that enables customers to evaluate the environmental footprint of their applications. Salesforce, meanwhile, offers a product called the Net Zero Cloud that streamlines tasks such as planning sustainability initiatives. 

Image: EcoVadis