John Doerr Backs British AI Company Isometric in $40m Funding Round

Silicon Valley investor John Doerr, an early backer of Google and Amazon, wrote the second-largest check in a $40 million funding round for Isometric, a London-based industrial company.

Doerr, the billionaire chairman of Kleiner Perkins, a California venture capital firm, has invested personally alongside lead investor AVP, which counts insurer Axa as a backer. The round also raised new capital from trading companies Plural and Lowercarbon Capital, and builds on the $25 million raised in late 2022.

Eamon Jubbawy, founder and chief executive of Isometric (pictured), said attracting investors of Doerr’s stature would help the company “open doors”.

“We don’t sell a simple product to small and medium-sized companies,” he said. “We sell certification services to the biggest companies in the world. Contract sizes can grow exponentially over time, and having someone like John on board can help open those doors for those deals to happen.”

Jubbawy founded Isometric in 2022 with the primary goal of bringing a more reliable verification process to carbon neutrality systems. Since then, more than 100 companies have used their services when purchasing carbon credits as part of managing their carbon emissions obligations.

After building that registry of projects, each of which can be reviewed by independent third parties, Isometric has since entered the industry-wide certification market. Using models from several major languages ​​to build its artificial intelligence tools, it now works with clients such as miner Anglo American and tech giants Microsoft and Google to test and ensure that suppliers meet the environmental standards they have promised.

“Someone like Microsoft or Google wants to ensure the carbon projects they buy from, the clean energy and sustainable fuels they buy,” Jubbawy said. “When they build data centers, they want to certify green steel and green cement, and certify water usage, as they need to comply with environmental safety guidelines. There are so many certification products they need.”

That scope is important at a time when British companies are under increasing pressure to prove their green credentials rather than assert them, a theme that is working through the government’s seventh carbon budget and its push to protect small firms from the next fossil fuel shock.

Jubbawy said that by using AI to analyze data sets, Isometric was able to speed up and sharpen the accuracy of certification, cutting the time required from “months” to “hours”. The company has contracted to certify more than 16 million tons of carbon so far.

It’s the kind of productivity gains analysts continue to expect from well-targeted AI adoption, with one study estimating a £105bn revenue boost for medium-sized British firms if the technology is adopted quickly.

The company has grown to employ 80 people in London and New York, including 15 with PhDs.

Jubbawy is not a first-time conductor. He is one of the three founders of Onfido, an ID verification software provider acquired by US security group Entrust in 2024 for $650 million. The founders, who met at Oxford University, hold about 16 percent of the business.

For Doerr, whose early bets on Google and Amazon helped define a generation of Silicon Valley investors, the bet on Isometric is small, personal. But for a London firm trying to sell the trust of the world’s biggest companies, a name like his on the share register may prove more valuable than the check itself.