The agriculture industry is at a climate crossroads.

Farmers nationwide want to adopt sustainable practices, but many lack the financial resources to do so. They're focused on making ends meet, given increasing input costs and stagnant-to-decreasing market prices.

The good news is there are other stakeholders in the livestock value chain — notably, large food corporations with lofty goals to reduce their carbon footprint — who are willing and able to help.

Carbon offsetting has long been a go-to approach for big enterprises. They invest in projects outside their organization, like those focused on methane capture and renewable-energy production, to make progress with Scope 3 emissions goals (and get credits for doing so).

But it’s become clear in recent years that carbon insetting — where every value chain member collectively works to drive down greenhouse-gas emissions within their shared supply chain — is the better option, as it involves systemic changes to their collective operations.

All that was needed was a new technology solution to incentivize all parties to work toward this progress together — specifically, one that benchmarks, verifies, and monetizes on-farm GHG reductions.

That’s why Athian, a first-of-its-kind insetting marketplace, was created.

We spoke with Athian CEO Paul Myer to get insights into the revolutionary platform, how his agricultural background and family farming history factored into his decision to become a co-founder, and the ag-industry transformation the company aims to achieve moving forward.

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Tell us about your background. What other companies have you led? How did your work there impact your decision to join Athian?

Paul: I started my career working for several multi-billion dollar companies in the tech space. In the second half of my career, I’ve worked on successively smaller companies, including three SaaS startups.

We built and sold three network security and data analytics companies, before I engaged with High Alpha about becoming an entrepreneur in residence at Athian.

My last company was launched in partnership with an incubator based in southern California. While the startup studio's vision was solid, it failed to execute on its plan, and, ultimately, the model failed.

With those battle scars from my previous experience, I knew right away that High Alpha Innovation had the right model and a capable and credible team to execute against that vision. 

In my view, High Alpha Innovation has the right system to ideate great companies and launch them in a founder-centric way that enables them to be successful over the long term.

Share your thoughts on meeting with our team and Elanco about the co-founder opportunity. What convinced you Athian was an ideal fit?

Paul: I come from three generations of cattle ranchers in the Southwest. The idea of working with farmers to implement sustainable practices piqued my interest.

When I met with High Alpha Innovation and Aaron Schacht from Elanco, their commitment to the ideation process that led to the initial concept (first called Cattleworx) resonated with me.

Their vision was to build an on-farm software platform that leveraged Elanco’s database of producer data to build a carbon-footprinting and -tracking tool that would help farmers to identify areas where they could implement sustainable practices to cut their GHG emissions.

Elanco envisioned a subscription model for farmers that could result in carbon credits for sustainable practice changes, but there wasn’t a firm market that would enable the sale of those credits.

I could see the short-term opportunity, but without a new marketplace for farm-based carbon credits, the subscription revenue would be limited.

We could see that, over the long term, new revenue from carbon credits would be required to fund the significant practice changes required to meet the industry’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2040.

In addition, Elanco was looking at new feed ingredients with only a GHG reduction claim and, without a carbon marketplace to generate income, no producer could justify the cost.

My vision was to leverage strategic partners from the animal ag supply chain to provide credibility and a channel to recruit farmers and off-take partners to buy the resulting credits. 

Elanco CEO Jeff Simmons agreed to reach out to his industry contacts to get the ball rolling. He was able to bring in several strategic early investors. This enabled us to realize our industry-supported vision for Athian and address a longstanding problem facing farmers and other members of the food value chain.

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What about the business model, industry, and/or audience tied to Athian did you find most interesting when you considered joining?

Paul: I love working with growers and producers. I’m also an avid outdoorsman. I love mountain biking, backpacking, and trail running.

Simply put, I have a love for the environment, and I share the beliefs of most farmers that it is our responsibility to be good stewards of the land, and to provide high-quality nutrition for a growing population.

I was intrigued by the opportunity to leverage my tech and data analytics background to provide a new revenue stream to farmers that would compensate them for implementing sustainable practice changes. 

You're a few years into running Athian. What has it been like to guide the company from pre-seed to the exciting traction you've had recently?

‍Paul: I’m grateful to have amazing people to work with who understand and are working toward realizing our sustainability vision. Our team now has several subject-matter experts in the emerging sustainability marketplace.

We were fortunate to hire Kendra Tolley, who had just finished building a FinTech company from startup to a successful IPO. Her skill set as a Chief Compliance Officer in the banking industry was transferrable to the sustainability space, and she brought the best of her former team members with her.

We now have seven of her former peers working for Athian, out of our 13 total team members. Together, we’ve built the world’s first carbon-insetting marketplace, and we are minting animal ag credits at scale.

It’s been a textbook exercise in the lean-startup process. We’ve effectively articulated our mission, vision, and corporate values to build an innovative and effective team environment.

It’s fun to see the market recognize the value we’ve created, and we look forward to changing the way food companies baseline, track, and fund sustainable changes in their supply chains.

Athian is already disrupting the agriculture space. What have you been most proud of to date? What excites you about the future?

Paul: As a purpose-driven company, I’m most proud of the way we’ve leveraged technology to enable farmers of all sizes to implement sustainable practices that will have an immediate impact on the environment.

We have effectively leveraged our seed investors for early market presence, and our focus on product management has enabled us to build out a platform that delivers real value to our customers and partners. The revenue we’re now generating is validation of our model, and it will lead to major growth through the end of the decade.

None of this would’ve been possible without High Alpha Innovation and Elanco recognizing this problem and acting on the opportunity to build Athian.

The structure High Alpha Innovation put into place in their initial negotiations with Elanco and the company’s role as our advocate with corporate partners has effectively mitigated the overhead that typically comes with strategic investors, and it’s set us up for long-term success.