Epoch raises $4.25m seed to automate EU deforestation compliance for smaller importers
London startup Epoch closed a $4.25m seed led by Burnt Island Ventures and Sand River, taking total funding to $6.26m.
Epoch, a London supply chain data company founded in 2023, announced a $4.25 million seed round on 26 October 2026. Burnt Island Ventures and Sand River led the round, which takes total funding to $6.26 million. The money goes into product, infrastructure and the commercial team.
The product is a first-mile data layer. A user submits a list of supplier names, and geospatial AI together with automated research agents locates the supplier facilities, identifies the relevant plots and scores them for deforestation and legality risk. The output is a due diligence statement with cited evidence that can be filed in TRACES, the European Union information system. Customers can work inside the Epoch platform or drive it through assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and the company says sensitive business data stays in the customer environment. The team numbers 14 people.
The timing is set by regulation rather than by the market. The EU Deforestation Regulation covers cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood, and it applies to large and medium operators from 30 December 2026 and to most micro and small operators from 30 June 2027. Earlier in October the company launched a self-serve version aimed squarely at small and mid-sized businesses, the group that carries the same documentation burden as a multinational without a sustainability department to absorb it.
Jinal Surti, co-founder and chief executive, was an early employee at Ripple. William Ouellette, co-founder and chief technology officer, previously co-founded Soilwatch, which worked on project design for the voluntary carbon market. "We've built a compliance solution for the AI era," Surti said. Christine Boyle, a partner at Burnt Island Ventures, and Greg Robson, a founding partner at Sand River, back the company. Epoch also distributes its data through third-party supply chain platforms rather than relying on direct sales alone.
Why it matters for AgTech founders: a legislated deadline is the cleanest go-to-market clock there is, and this round is a reminder of how to monetise one. Three things are worth copying. First, the wedge is the filing, not the insight. Buyers do not pay for a risk score, they pay to be allowed to keep importing, which is why the deliverable is a document that goes into a government system. Second, the self-serve tier is the real strategy. Enterprise compliance budgets were spoken for years ago by larger vendors, so the open ground is the thousands of small importers who were never going to run a procurement process, and self-serve is the only distribution that reaches them at a workable cost of sale. Third, the data layer sits inside other people's platforms as well as its own, which turns competitors into channels. Founders building anything downstream of EUDR, CSRD or the forthcoming soil and carbon rules should check whether their product ends in a decision support screen or in a filed document, because only one of those gets bought under deadline pressure.
Epoch raises $4.25m seed to automate EU deforestation compliance for smaller importers
Burnt Island Ventures and Sand River led the round for the London company that traces cocoa, coffee and rubber back to the plot and files the paperwork the EU deforestation rules demand.
Epoch, a London supply chain data company founded in 2023, announced a $4.25 million seed round on 26 October 2026. Burnt Island Ventures and Sand River led the round, which takes total funding to $6.26 million. The money goes into product, infrastructure and the commercial team.
The product is a first-mile data layer. A user submits a list of supplier names, and geospatial AI together with automated research agents locates the supplier facilities, identifies the relevant plots and scores them for deforestation and legality risk. The output is a due diligence statement with cited evidence that can be filed in TRACES, the European Union information system. Customers can work inside the Epoch platform or drive it through assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and the company says sensitive business data stays in the customer environment. The team numbers 14 people.
The timing is set by regulation rather than by the market. The EU Deforestation Regulation covers cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood, and it applies to large and medium operators from 30 December 2026 and to most micro and small operators from 30 June 2027. Earlier in October the company launched a self-serve version aimed squarely at small and mid-sized businesses, the group that carries the same documentation burden as a multinational without a sustainability department to absorb it.
Jinal Surti, co-founder and chief executive, was an early employee at Ripple. William Ouellette, co-founder and chief technology officer, previously co-founded Soilwatch, which worked on project design for the voluntary carbon market. "We've built a compliance solution for the AI era," Surti said. Christine Boyle, a partner at Burnt Island Ventures, and Greg Robson, a founding partner at Sand River, back the company. Epoch also distributes its data through third-party supply chain platforms rather than relying on direct sales alone.
Why it matters for AgTech founders: a legislated deadline is the cleanest go-to-market clock there is, and this round is a reminder of how to monetise one. Three things are worth copying. First, the wedge is the filing, not the insight. Buyers do not pay for a risk score, they pay to be allowed to keep importing, which is why the deliverable is a document that goes into a government system. Second, the self-serve tier is the real strategy. Enterprise compliance budgets were spoken for years ago by larger vendors, so the open ground is the thousands of small importers who were never going to run a procurement process, and self-serve is the only distribution that reaches them at a workable cost of sale. Third, the data layer sits inside other people's platforms as well as its own, which turns competitors into channels. Founders building anything downstream of EUDR, CSRD or the forthcoming soil and carbon rules should check whether their product ends in a decision support screen or in a filed document, because only one of those gets bought under deadline pressure.
