GainForest Labs
GainForest Labs is a Swiss non-profit that builds open-source, community-owned technology (Bumicerts, Green Globe, Tainá and Polly AI assistants) on ATProto to help Indigenous and local communities verify, certify, and fund grassroots conservation work across four continents.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2022
- HeadquartersZürich, Switzerland
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What GainForest Labs does
GainForest Labs (legally GainForest e.V.) is a Swiss tax-exempt non-profit association registered in Zurich (2022) that builds open-source, community-owned technology for environmental conservation. Its core platform consists of Bumicerts — environmental hypercerts that bind a community's photos, audio, and field notes into ATProto-signed proof-of-impact records — and Green Globe, a live interactive map streaming conservation project data from ATProto via the GainForest indexer. Supporting tools include AudioMoth bioacoustic monitoring stations, drone-based verification, a KoboToolbox-based Tree Measurement App, and AI assistants Tainá (a multilingual LLM for Indigenous knowledge archiving, co-designed with communities around Manaus) and Polly (an LLM assistant for Global Majority youth climate negotiators at UNFCCC COPs).
The organization's technology stack is built on the ATProto (Authenticated Transfer Protocol) ecosystem, including the co-authored org.hypercerts.* lexicons, Hypersphere PDS, Hyperindex, Hyperlabel, and Hyperscan — all open source on GitHub and HuggingFace. Research outputs include 10 papers at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, IEEE, and AAAI, datasets such as OAM-TCD (280,000+ tree crown annotations) and ReforesTree, and the BiodivX autonomous aerial-aquatic biodiversity assessment pipeline that won the XPRIZE Rainforest Bonus Prize in 2024.
Revenue is generated through donations (fiat via Donorbox in CHF/USD/EUR; crypto via Giveth in ETH, USDC, GIV, DAI, USDT, WBTC, and other tokens) and grants from foundations including the Ethereum Foundation, Filecoin Green, Klarna, Microsoft, Solana Foundation, Celo, and Swiss Re Institute. A secondary income stream — Conservation Data Income (CDI) — rewards communities for ecological data collection at community-governed prices ($0.01/min of bioacoustic recordings, $0.05/MB of drone imagery), with over $32,000 paid out as of 2024. Tools are provided to community partners free of charge, and governance is shared with frontline communities through the Nature Guild (formalized 2025) and the GainForest Indigenous and Local Data Council. The entity serves 93+ frontline communities and 20 nature partners across 13+ countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
GainForest Labs firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- GainForest Labs
- Legal name
- GainForest e.V.
- Website
- https://gainforest.earth
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2022
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- GainForest Labs is a Swiss non-profit that builds open-source, community-owned technology (Bumicerts, Green Globe, Tainá and Polly AI assistants) on ATProto to help Indigenous and local communities verify, certify, and fund grassroots conservation work across four continents.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
GainForest Labs industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Conservation Technology
- NAICS
- Environment, Conservation and Wildlife Organizations (813312)
- SIC
- Forestry (800)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Environmental & Climate Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAM)
Keywords
Where GainForest Labs is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Zürich
- HQ country
- Switzerland
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
GainForest Labs business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Donations and Grants: GainForest e.V. is a Swiss non-profit that relies on donations and grants from foundations, organizations, and individuals. They accept fiat donations via Donorbox (CHF, USD, EUR) and crypto donations via Giveth (ETH, USDC, GIV, DAI, USDT, WBTC, LINK, and more).
- Conservation Data Income (CDI): Payment infrastructure that rewards communities for ecological data collection. As of 2024, over $32,000 has been paid out in CDI to communities. Data prices are set by communities themselves through a data council governance model.
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels9 records
GainForest Labs product offering
Product offeringCore offering
GainForest is a Swiss non-profit that builds local-first, open-source technology and AI for conservation. It provides communities with tools to collect ecological data (bioacoustics, drones, tree measurement), issue verifiable environmental impact certificates (Bumicerts) on ATProto, and access climate finance through blockchain-based mechanisms like Conservation Data Income and the Nature Guild.
Product overview
GainForest is a Swiss non-profit offering a platform-plus-community ecosystem of open tools for regenerative intelligence. The core platform consists of three integrated pillars: Bumicerts (environmental hypercerts that bind community photos, audio, and field notes into ATProto-signed proof-of-impact records), Green Globe (a live interactive map streaming conservation project data in real time via ATProto), and AI Assistants (Tainá for Indigenous community knowledge management and Polly for youth climate negotiators). Supporting these are biodiversity monitoring tools — AudioMoth bioacoustic stations, drone imagery, and a KoboToolbox-based tree measurement app — all feeding data into the Green Globe and Bumicerts system. Conservation Data Income (CDI) provides the payment layer, rewarding communities for ecological data collection via blockchain. The Nature Guild offers a structured funding pathway across four levels, while the ATProto open infrastructure (Hypersphere PDS, Hyperindex, Hyperlabel, Hyperscan) ensures community-owned data and interoperability. All models (OAM-TCD, Geo-Bench, BiodivX agents) and ATProto lexicons are open source on GitHub and HuggingFace. The system is unified by a mission of regenerative intelligence — sociotechnical systems that preserve human agency while scaling commons governance.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Bumicerts: Environmental impact certificates issued by communities doing conservation work; each Bumicert binds photos, audio, and field notes into a verifiable, portable record on ATProto.
- Green Globe
- Taina
- Polly
- Ecocertain
- Nature Guild
- Conservation Data Income (CDI)
- GainForest Indigenous and Local Data Council
Products and services
- Bumicerts Environmental impact certificates (environmental hypercerts) that bundle a community's photos, audio, and field notes into one signed, portable, ATProto-anchored record. Each Bumicert binds proof-of-impact evidence into a verifiable record owned by the community, enabling transparent conservation funding.
- Green Globe An interactive live platform showcasing and monitoring restoration and conservation projects worldwide. Project pins are streamed in real time from ATProto via the GainForest indexer, with remote sensing analysis overlaid.
- Taina A multilingual, community-owned AI storytelling assistant co-designed with Indigenous communities around Greater Manaus, Brazil. It guides communities through archiving and sharing knowledge in their own language via Telegram, with data self-hosted or governed through a community-elected Data Council.
- Polly An AI assistant developed with the Youth Negotiators Academy to support youth negotiators from the Global Majority in international climate conferences (UNFCCC COPs). Provides simplified climate finance explanations, multilingual document analysis, historical context, and intervention drafting support.
- Conservation Data Income (CDI) An end-to-end payment infrastructure that rewards local and Indigenous communities for ecological data collection. Communities earn CDI payments (e.g., $0.01/min of bioacoustic recordings, $0.05/MB of drone imagery) by collecting and sharing biodiversity data publicly on Green Globe.
- AudioMoth Biodiversity Monitoring Deployment of AudioMoth, open-source low-cost acoustic monitoring devices, in ecosystems such as mangroves in the Philippines, the Amazon in Brazil, and forests in Thailand. Passive listening stations record bioacoustic data which open species classifiers turn into biodiversity records.
- Drone Monitoring Drones used for conservation impact verification, monitoring human impact (logging, land conversion), and training local communities in drone-based verification techniques. Drone imagery serves as proof-of-work evidence in Bumicerts.
- Tree Measurement App A KoboToolbox-based data collection system for field workers to measure trees in remote locations. Supports offline data collection with automatic sync; communities can self-host their own Kobo instance to maintain data sovereignty.
- ATProto Open Infrastructure A suite of open-source ATProto packages including Hypersphere PDS (self-hostable personal data server), Hyperindex (firehose indexer to Postgres/GraphQL), Hyperlabel (labeller service for trust labels), Hyperscan (web explorer for hypercert records), and org.hypercerts.* lexicons. All open source on GitHub.
- Open Models & Datasets Trained models and datasets released openly, including OAM-TCD (280,000+ tree crown annotations with Mask2Former/SegFormer baselines), Geo-Bench (community benchmark for Earth-observation foundation models), ReforesTree (drone carbon stock dataset), and the BiodivX agents pipeline.
- Nature Guild A self-governing guild of global environmental projects providing a funding pathway for communities through four levels ($100 Level 0 to $500K+ Level 3 annual revenues). Includes a community treasury funded by donations and managed via smart contracts that split rewards quarterly based on activity and impact.
Quantifiable outcome
- $32,000+ paid out in Conservation Data Income to communities as of 2024
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use GainForest Labs
Customer profileNamed customers8 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
GainForest Labs technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration8 records
AI capability15 records
Feature8 records
GainForest Labs partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
14 partnerships are on record, tiered core, flagship and supporting.
- ETH BiodivXcorePartnership with ETH Zurich's biodiversity research team for the XPRIZE Rainforest competition. Won the Bonus Prize together in the Amazon. Joint development of autonomous aerial-aquatic rapid biodiversity assessment pipeline published in IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics.
- ETH AI CentercorePartnership with ETH AI Center for the AI+Environment EcoHackathon (136 participants, 20 teams, 3 weeks of AI and data visualization for Amazon conservation).
- Youth Negotiators Academy (YNA)coreCollaboration to develop Polly AI assistant for supporting youth negotiators from the Global Majority in international climate conferences (COPs).
- Hypercerts FoundationcoreCo-authored ATProto lexicons (org.hypercerts.*) for describing impact claims, evidence collections, and verification labels. Built EcoCertain marketplace for impact certificates on Hypercerts model.
- Oceanus ConservationcorePhilippines-based partner for mangrove conservation. Joint work on bioacoustic data collection using AudioMoths, featured in CNA documentary.
- Ma EarthcoreConservation podcast host featuring GainForest's work on origin story, current initiatives, retro funding, AI, Web3, and XPRIZE. Partner on conservation data income initiatives.
- Inhaã-bécoreIndigenous community partner from Greater Manaus, Brazil. Co-designed Tainá AI assistant and Bumicert system. Featured in XPRIZE Rainforest finals.
- Te Tauihu Environment TrustcoreNew Zealand community partner issuing Bumicerts for grassroots conservation in Te Tauihu region.
- XPRIZE FoundationflagshipXPRIZE Rainforest competition organizer. GainForest won the Bonus Prize. Prize money ($250,000) donated to Indigenous Science Endowment Fund.
- GitcoinsupportingWeb3 funding platform enabling community grants for nature stewards. GainForest provides capacity building for community partners on Gitcoin Grants.
- GivethsupportingCrypto donation platform accepting ETH, USDC, GIV, DAI, USDT, WBTC, LINK, and other tokens for GainForest.
- Swiss Re InstitutesupportingAlgorithms for Hope programme featured GainForest's AI and data-systems approach to monitoring ecosystems and financing restoration.
- Swissnex BrazilsupportingSwitzerland-Brazil collaboration reporting on ETH BiodivX and GainForest work around biodiversity data and AI.
- MADES ParaguaycoreMinisterio del Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible partnership to strengthen protected areas in the Chaco region.
Scale indicators11 records
Recent moves10 records
Expansion highlights6 records
GainForest Labs competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Pachama: Pachama uses satellite imagery and AI to verify forest carbon projects and connects buyers to high-quality nature-based credits. Directly comparable to GainForest's mission of AI-anchored verification of community-led conservation, though Pachama operates on a for-profit, marketplace model rather than a non-profit/grantmaking model.
- Sylvera: Sylvera applies satellite ML and machine learning to independently rate the quality of nature-based carbon projects. Comparable to GainForest's drone/satellite tree crown segmentation pipeline (OAM-TCD) and ForestBench diagnostics, with a for-profit ratings business model targeting carbon credit buyers.
- Regen Network: Regen Network is a public blockchain for ecological assets and verifiable claims, including carbon credits and biodiversity credits. Closely comparable to GainForest's Web3 registry layer (Bumicerts, EcoCertain, Hypercerts) and CDI payment infrastructure.
- Hypercerts Foundation: Hypercerts Foundation is a non-profit stewarding the open Hypercerts protocol for impact claims — directly co-authored by GainForest via org.hypercerts.* ATProto lexicons. They share infrastructure, product concepts, and overlapping community partners.
- Toucan Protocol: Toucan Protocol builds Web3 infrastructure for tokenizing and trading carbon credits on-chain. Comparable to GainForest's EcoCertain marketplace and Giveth/Gitcoin funding flows, with a more developed DeFi/commercial angle.
Emerging players
- KlimaDAO: KlimaDAO is a DAO accelerating climate finance through on-chain carbon markets. Comparable as a Web3-native climate finance peer, though with a financialization focus rather than GainForest's community-led verification focus.
- Bluesky: Bluesky is the most prominent ATProto-based federated social network. GainForest's entire infrastructure (Hypersphere PDS, Hyperindex, Hyperlabel) is built on ATProto, making Bluesky both the protocol's largest user and a potential distribution channel for GainForest's lexicons and tools.
Broad incumbents
- Verra: Verra is the dominant standards body for voluntary carbon markets (VCS, CCB). GainForest's hypercert/certificate model is an alternative rails for impact verification, and Verra represents the institutional incumbent that GainForest's open protocols could complement or compete with.
- The Nature Conservancy: The Nature Conservancy is one of the world's largest conservation NGOs, with global operations, paid conservation staff, and growing investments in technology-driven monitoring. Comparable mission (nature protection at scale) but with vastly larger institutional funding and a more traditional NGO structure.
Others
- Hugging Face: Hugging Face hosts GainForest's biodivx organization and released datasets/models (OAM-TCD, Geo-Bench). They are an infrastructure/enabling peer rather than a competitor — sharing an open-source AI philosophy and providing the platform where GainForest's conservation ML assets are distributed.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
GainForest Labs social profiles
Digital presenceGainForest Labs financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
GainForest Labs leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
GainForest Labs funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors1 record
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
GainForest Labs M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about GainForest Labs
What does GainForest Labs do?
GainForest is a Swiss non-profit that builds local-first, open-source technology and AI for conservation. It provides communities with tools to collect ecological data (bioacoustics, drones, tree measurement), issue verifiable environmental impact certificates (Bumicerts) on ATProto, and access climate finance through blockchain-based mechanisms like Conservation Data Income and the Nature Guild.
Is GainForest Labs a public or private company?
GainForest Labs is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was GainForest Labs founded?
GainForest Labs was founded in 2022. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is GainForest Labs based?
GainForest Labs is headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, in the Europe region.
How does GainForest Labs make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Donations and Grants are the primary driver. The others are conservation Data Income (CDI).
Who are GainForest Labs's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Pachama, Sylvera, Regen Network, Hypercerts Foundation and Toucan Protocol. Emerging players are KlimaDAO and Bluesky. Broad incumbents are Verra and The Nature Conservancy. Hugging Face is listed as an others.
Does GainForest Labs have an API?
No public API is recorded for GainForest Labs.
What industry is GainForest Labs in?
GainForest Labs's product category is Conservation Technology. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAGAKAM, Environmental & Climate Grantmaking Foundations. Its NAICS code is 813312 and its SIC code is 800.