Upwood: Latvia’s €50K Fintech Bet on Tokenized Forest and Carbon Markets

A Riga-based startup wants to turn European forestry into a liquid, blockchain-native asset class. The question is whether a €50,000 pre-seed round is enough to get there.

Forestry has never been a particularly accessible investment. The asset class is illiquid, operationally complex, and historically reserved for institutional portfolios and sovereign wealth funds. Upwood, a Latvian fintech startup operating at the intersection of blockchain infrastructure and sustainable finance, is building a platform designed to change that. The company aims to issue regulated security tokens backed by real-world forest assets, with carbon credit tokens as a utility layer on top. It is a small operation with an outsized thesis: that tokenization can do for European forestry what fractional shares did for equities.

In late 2025, Upwood closed a €50,000 pre-seed round from ZAS Ventures, a US-based venture capital firm founded in 2021 by Andriy Zinchuk and Artem Volkhonskyi. Operating out of San Francisco and Kyiv, ZAS backs early-stage startups from Central and Eastern Europe and typically writes checks in the $50,000 to $200,000 range.

It is, by any measure, a modest raise. The pre-seed sits at the floor of ZAS Ventures’ typical range, landing in a sector where regulatory licensing alone can consume multiples of that figure. Still, the round signals early venture interest in a sustainable finance platform merging ESG investing with tokenized natural capital.

Fractional Forest Ownership On-Chain

The platform allows individual and institutional investors to purchase digital tokens representing fractional ownership of verified forest plots. These tokens generate returns through two direct revenue streams, mature timber harvesting and carbon credit sales, as well as long-term asset appreciation driven by ongoing replanting cycles. Token holders can sell their carbon credits on the open market or retire them to offset their own emissions. The company partners with licensed forestry service providers for physical land management, meaning investors need no operational expertise.

For its inaugural security token offering, Upwood selected a 16.5-hectare forest plantation, a deliberate starting point designed to prove out the regulatory and technical infrastructure before scaling. The platform uses geospatial verification tools to monitor forest growth and carbon sequestration, providing real-time performance data rather than periodic fund reports.

Underpinning the platform is a partnership with Concordium, a Swiss-based layer-1 blockchain, announced in mid-2024. The integration leverages Concordium’s Real-World Asset framework and built-in identity layer, allowing the startup to verify stakeholders while preserving on-chain privacy. The startup also received a Concordium grant to support development.

The Founders and the Baltic Angle

Upwood is led by CEO Lauris Borodovskis, whose background spans e-commerce and digital marketplace operations, including time at Danish luxury brand Georg Jensen. Borodovskis has been active in the Web3 and carbon credit community, presenting on Verified Carbon Credits and engaging with organizations like UN:BLOCK in Latvia. His trajectory mirrors a pattern common in climate fintech: operators from traditional commerce repurposing their platform-building skills for financial instruments tied to natural assets.

Latvia itself is a relevant variable. The Baltic states have cultivated a reputation as fintech-friendly jurisdictions, with Riga home to a growing cluster of payment, lending, and digital asset startups. The country’s proximity to vast Scandinavian and Baltic forestry resources, combined with EU regulatory alignment, gives the company a geographic logic that a similar startup based elsewhere might lack.

Market Timing: Carbon Credits at an Inflection Point

The startup’s timing aligns with several converging trends. The voluntary carbon market is entering what analysts describe as a maturation phase. Estimates of its current size range from roughly $1.5 billion to $3 billion, but most forecasters agree on the trajectory: annual growth of 20% to 35%, with projections reaching $15 billion to $47 billion by 2035. In the first half of 2025, voluntary carbon credit retirements hit 95 million metric tons, a record for any half-year period.

Simultaneously, the broader real-world asset tokenization market has surged. Tokenized RWAs reached roughly $24 billion in total value by early 2026, according to RWA.xyz, reflecting growth exceeding 260% year on year. McKinsey projects the sector could reach $2 trillion by 2030. BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and JPMorgan have all launched tokenized fund products, lending institutional credibility to the space.

Upwood sits at the niche intersection of these two expanding markets. Nature-based carbon credits from forestry trade at roughly €7 to €24 per ton, with premium verified projects commanding significantly more. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, entering full application in 2026, is expected to create additional demand for verified carbon assets within Europe.

Potential Customers

The platform targets three distinct buyer profiles. Retail investors seeking ESG-aligned exposure to real assets represent the most visible segment, particularly as tokenized products carry far lower minimums than traditional forestry funds. Institutional allocators looking for regulated natural capital exposure are a second target, especially as EU reporting requirements tighten under frameworks like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.

Corporate buyers may prove the most significant channel. Over 10,000+ companies globally have committed to science-based climate targets under the SBTi framework, and many are seeking credible offset instruments. Blockchain-verified forestry assets could offer a reputational edge over conventional procurement, which has faced persistent criticism around greenwashing, questionable additionality, and opaque supply chains.

Risks and Open Questions

For all the elegance of the concept, the startup faces familiar early-stage challenges. A €50,000 round is exceptionally lean, even by Central and Eastern European standards. Product development, EU regulatory approvals, forestry asset acquisition, and platform security all require capital the company does not yet appear to have.

The greenwashing question also cuts both ways. Blockchain verification is positioned as a solution to credibility problems in voluntary carbon markets, but the technology alone does not guarantee offset quality. Credit retirements fell 7% in 2025 versus the prior year, according to Carbon Direct, even as corporate climate pledges surged 227%. Over half of all voluntary market retirements in recent years have been anonymous. Upwood will need to demonstrate its credits meet integrity standards such as the ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles to attract institutional buyers.

The regulatory picture adds complexity. MiCA governs crypto-asset service providers but does not directly cover tokenized financial instruments, which fall under MiFID II and the DLT Pilot Regime. Navigating this layered environment is expensive and represents a real barrier at this stage.

The Bigger Picture

The company is not alone in exploring the tokenization of natural capital. StartUs Insights listed the startup among the top 10 carbon trading companies to watch in 2026, alongside competitors from Malaysia, Italy, Singapore, and Brazil. The competitive landscape is fragmented and early-stage, meaning there is room for a well-executed sustainable finance platform to establish position within the EU regulatory perimeter.

The value proposition is straightforward: make forest assets investable, make carbon credits tradeable, and make both verifiable through blockchain. Whether a Latvian startup with a five-figure pre-seed can execute that vision in a market shaped by trillion-dollar institutions is the central question. The answer depends on regulatory strategy, asset quality, and the team’s ability to attract the next round before the window closes.

For now, Upwood is 16.5 hectares of Latvian forest, a blockchain partnership, and a €50,000 bet that the market is ready. The trees, at least, are patient.