- Edited
In regards to questions directed toward viability, I wanted to provide some additional context
Carbonmark's business model
Carbonmark’s core revenue stems from brokerage fees tied to trading volumes. In order to build market share and maximize transaction volume, we are currently pricing our services competitively. These brokerage fees would be distinct from the existing fee system that exists in the KlimaDAO Protocol (e.g. those that come from the Retirement Bonds). In addition to this, as we continue to build value-added features and services on the core product, we anticipate new revenue streams to open up, which may include subscription and advertising fees.
We believe that by having a commercially-incentivized ecosystem built on top of KlimaDAO's infrastructure, we can maximize the chance of success for all stakeholders involved.
Carbonmark currently aims to serve three key users within the Voluntary Carbon Market:
- Companies looking to offset their carbon footprint programmatically.
- Developers of carbon projects seeking direct access to buyers.
- Intermediary traders.
Critical to addressing the needs of (2) and (3) are the changes we propose making as part of KIP-45, including establishing a fit-for-purpose legal entity and delivering a set of key features to enable greater accessibility to the underlying technology.
Beyond these user groups however, we believe our addressable market extends far beyond the VCM. Extending into other environmental asset classes is high on our priority list.
Our organization
During the early stages of the DAO’s life, the flat management hierarchy and lack of structure resulted in an unwieldy organization. Since this time however, we have focused on driving efficiency, accountability and alignment within the team. We have sought to strike the right balance between speed and burn, and improvements in core operations have resulted in a much-reduced team size of dedicated and talented team members.
The Carbonmark core team and advisors consist of experienced world-class technologists and carbon market industry experts:
- Andrew Bonneau, Business Development & Partnerships. Co-founder of KlimaDAO, C3 and Offsetra. Previously at First Climate and BioCarbon Engineering. MSc in Environmental Governance from the University of Freiburg.
- Gabriel Kent, Product Owner - KlimaDAO core team contributor since October, 2021. Experienced startup CTO and former co-founder at Adext AI, Defilanthropy, Virket Holding, DASH, and others. Successfully involved in numerous capital raises and exits / acquisitions.
- Brice Walsh, Principal Product Manager - KlimaDAO contributor since January, 2022. Over 20 years experience as a builder in software studio consulting agencies and startup organizations. Leading product and scaling technology startups since 2019.
- Brendan McGill, Head of Engineering. Co-founder of KlimaDAO and Offsetra. Previously at Esri and Ioki. MSc in Environmental Governance from the University of Freiburg.
- Giorgio Alessandro Donà-Danioni, Head of Legal. Co-founder of KlimaDAO and C3. Previously at Studio Pirola Pennuto Zei and Borgonuovo & Partners. J.D. from LIUC - Università Cattaneo and Barcelona's universitad Abat Oliba
- Peter Noszek, Marketing. Co-Founder of TOKEN2049, previously Head of Growth at Montu – Australia's fastest growing tech company. MA from University of Cambridge and MSc from the London School of Economics.
- Liam Ellul, Head of Solutions - Senior technology strategist with 9+ years of experience in leading tech firms, as well as zero-to-one product and business growth environments.
- David Peyronnin, Consultant & Operations. 25 years of experience in IT OPS and in crypto since 2013. Co-founded various startups and worked on projects including TheDAO, VISA DLT pilot, Polkadot during its launch. Co-organised the Ethereum Meetups in London since 2014. Worked as head of delivery for Barclays and delivered front to back trading platforms for tier 1 investment banks worldwide at FIS Global. He is also the proud father of 2 teenagers.
With that core team and a group of incredible contributors and community members, we have significantly de-risked the market opportunity and delivered several key milestones (with H1 and H2 2023 milestones listed below)
With KIP-45, Carbonmark aims to become profitable and self-sufficient as a standalone entity. This means we are aiming to rely less on KlimaDAO's treasury for funding. Further, spinning off Carbonmark with a more traditional legal framework will allow us to more easily recruit top talent, work with major institutions, and generate profits, which in turn supports both our mission and KlimaDAO’s (specifically, increasing the throughput of tokenized environmental commodities across the foundational infrastructure that KlimaDAO has developed).
Finally, the team recognizes that the market is significantly more competitive than it was when KlimaDAO first launched back in 2021. We need to maintain some degree of commercial sensitivity around things like pricing, partnerships and roadmap to avoid risks from competitors. Having said this, the KlimaDAO protocol is actively working through the recommendations from the Decentralization Working Group, and a key pillar of this is around transparency. We believe KlimaDAO is one of the most transparent DAOs in the market, but we are working toward continual improvements in this area.