What CTrees does

CTrees is a Pasadena-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit science organization founded in 2022 by scientists Sassan Saatchi (CEO, also a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech and adjunct professor at UCLA) and Phil DeCola. The organization has built what it describes as the first global system to monitor, report, and verify (MRV) carbon stocks and land-use activities for every ecosystem on land, covering 263 countries and territories with 25+ years of historical data. Its technology stack integrates NASA LiDAR measurements (ICESat and GEDI satellites), satellite radar and optical imagery, deep learning models, and change detection algorithms customized for over 800 ecoregions globally, calibrated against more than 1.5 million ground plot data points and validated at 94% forest accuracy and 79% deforestation accuracy across 44 jurisdictions.

The product portfolio comprises six core data products — Land Carbon Map, Tree-Level Data, Activity Data, Jurisdictional MRV (JMRV), Land Use Change Alerts (LUCA), and REDD+AI — organized into three solution areas: Global Assessment (cross-jurisdictional carbon tracking), Country & State Programs (governmental MRV and UNFCCC support), and Carbon Markets (project feasibility, issuance, and monitoring for REDD+, ARR, and IFM projects). CTrees has been selected by Verra as the data provider for its consolidated REDD+ methodology VM0048, covering 42+ jurisdictions, and has conducted independent review of nine jurisdictions under the ART/TREES standard.

Revenue is generated through a hybrid model combining fee-based data licensing and commercial agreements (with governments, carbon market participants, and standards bodies) alongside donations and grants as a registered nonprofit. Data is distributed through AWS Open Data Registry, Earthmover marketplace, Google Earth Engine, and Upstream Tech's Lens platform, as well as direct commercial agreements. The customer base spans national and sub-national governments (Costa Rica, Gabon via AGEOS, Argentina's Misiones province, Indonesia's Banyuwangi), carbon standards organizations (Verra, ART/TREES), multilateral coalitions (Climate TRACE), conservation NGOs (Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Wildlife Conservation Society), and forest managers (Sustainable Forestry Initiative). The organization has 11-50 employees and operates from a single Pasadena headquarters.

Name

CTrees

Legal name

CTrees

Website

https://ctrees.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

CTrees is a Pasadena-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2022 that operates the first global monitoring, reporting, and verification system for forest carbon stocks and land-use activity, serving governments, carbon market participants, and standards bodies including Verra.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Forest Carbon Analytics & MRV Data

NAICS

Surveying and Mapping (except Geophysical) Services (54137)

SIC

Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374)

akta.pro primary industry

Remote Sensing & Geospatial MRV (Satellite, Aerial, LiDAR, SAR) (EUABACAF)

akta.pro secondary industries

Soil & Biomass Carbon Measurement (Soil Sampling, Forest Inventory, Blue Carbon) (EUABACAH), Forest Inventory, Mapping & Monitoring (GIS/Remote Sensing/MRV) (IMAMAJAB), Agriculture & Land-Use MRV (Soil carbon, livestock, forestry/REDD+) (EUAHADAI), Industrial & Energy MRV (Facilities, Renewables, Methane, Process Emissions) (EUABACAI)

Keywords

• Forest carbon monitoring
• Remote sensing analytics
• Carbon MRV services
• Land use change detection
• Nature-based climate data

Headquarters

HQ city

Pasadena

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Data Services and Licensing: CTrees provides scientific carbon monitoring data to governments, organizations, and carbon market participants through commercial agreements. Fee-based products and services are provided pursuant to commercial agreements with applicable terms.
2. Donations and Grants: As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, CTrees accepts donations and grants to support its mission of tracking carbon in every tree on Earth.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

CTrees operates the first global system to monitor, report, and verify (MRV) carbon stocks and land-use activity across every ecosystem on land. It combines NASA satellite LiDAR (ICESat, GEDI), satellite radar and optical imagery, and deep learning/change-detection algorithms to deliver high-resolution forest carbon datasets (down to 0.6 m for tree-level data) covering 263 countries and territories with 25+ years of historical record, packaged as six data products and three jurisdictional/market solutions.

Product overview

CTrees is a science nonprofit that has developed the first global system to monitor, report, and verify (MRV) carbon stocks and land-use activities for every ecosystem on land. The product portfolio consists of six core data products (Land Carbon Map, Tree-Level Data, Activity Data, Jurisdictional MRV, Land Use Change Alerts (LUCA), and REDD+AI) organized around three solution areas: Global Assessment for tracking progress on GHG reductions at any scale globally; Country & State Programs for jurisdictional monitoring and policy support; and Carbon Markets for project developers and investors. All products are built on peer-reviewed science combining remote sensing data, AI, and local knowledge to systematically measure carbon flux and land-use activities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• JMRV (Jurisdictional MRV): Open data platform providing carbon stocks, emissions, and removals data for 263 countries and territories.
• LUCA (Land Use Change Alerts)
• REDD+AI

Products and services

• Land Carbon Map Annual estimates of carbon at 1-hectare resolution in all land cover types globally, including above-ground, below-ground, and soil organic carbon from 2000 to present, available at multiple resolutions (1 km, 1 hectare, 30 m) for governments, standards bodies, and market participants tracking emissions and removals.
• Tree-Level Data Maps individual trees at local to national scales, both inside and outside forests, providing location, crown size, height, and estimated carbon content of individual trees at up to 0.6 m resolution for forest managers, wildfire analysts, and urban canopy programs.
• Activity Data Historical geospatial data on deforestation, forest degradation, and forest regeneration across the tropics, with attribution to specific drivers including logging, fire, and road construction, for jurisdictional REDD+ baselines and project monitoring.
• Jurisdictional MRV (JMRV) Open data platform providing carbon stocks, emissions, and removals for 263 countries and territories, enabling governments and standards bodies to assess land carbon changes at national and sub-national jurisdictional levels.
• Land Use Change Alerts (LUCA) Near-real-time information on land use change activities and forest disturbances worldwide, providing alerts on emerging deforestation and degradation threats with quarterly reversal risk reports for governments and conservation agencies.
• REDD+AI Platform measuring and attributing forest degradation to logging, fire, and roads in all tropical forests globally since 2017, using deep learning to detect degradation with accuracy comparable to human interpretation of satellite imagery, for REDD+ project developers and standards bodies.
• Global Assessment Solution Solution package combining CTrees' data products to provide annual maps and metrics for carbon stocks, emissions, and removals globally, supporting tracking of collective progress on GHG reductions at any scale for governments and multilateral organizations.
• Country & State Programs Solution

Quantifiable outcome

• 94% forest accuracy and 79% deforestation accuracy across 44 jurisdictions using 97,000 validation samples
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

AI capability6 records

Feature9 records

Partnerships

17 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 May 2026Partnership to build pilot data architecture for forest supply shed analytics. Combines ecological and economic data at supply shed level to inform forest resilience planning. Part of SFI Climate Smart Forestry Initiative.
• Upstream TechcoreTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2026CTrees canopy height data integrated into Lens platform for remote monitoring of landscape change. Upstream Tech built batch-purchase functionality due to high demand for CTrees data.
• US Forest ServicecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUS Forest Service funds research including the Gabon Carbon Map study and provides collaboration on forest monitoring methodologies and ground truth validation.
• Climate TRACEcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCTrees provides data on emissions from forestry and land use to Climate TRACE, a coalition producing an open inventory of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• VerracoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCTrees is the selected data provider for Verra's consolidated REDD+ methodology (VM0048), providing jurisdictional data for projects using the methodology.
• Conservation InternationalcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerConservation organization partner collaborating on global forest and carbon monitoring initiatives.
• Nature ConservancycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMajor conservation organization partner for forest carbon monitoring and climate solutions.
• AGEOS (Gabon's Space Agency)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration with Gabon's space agency for international data exchange, training, and carbon mapping of Gabon's forests. Experts from AGEOS visited CTrees for collaboration.
• GooglecoreTechnology or IntegrationPartner through Google Earth Engine integration and AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program for democratizing access to high-value datasets.
• UCLA Institute of the Environment and SustainabilitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner; CTrees CEO Sassan Saatchi is an adjunct professor at UCLA. Research collaboration including Gabon Carbon Map with UCLA researchers.
• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/CaltechcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCTrees CEO Sassan Saatchi is a senior research scientist at NASA's JPL/Caltech. Collaboration on satellite data utilization including GEDI and ICESat missions.
• GCF Task Force (Governors' Climate and Forests Task Force)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on jurisdictional REDD+ programs; CTrees presents data at annual GCF meetings and supports forest economy initiatives.
• Lincoln Institute of Land PolicyminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic partner in land policy and forest monitoring research.
• Terra GlobalminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEnvironmental services firm partner for carbon market and forest monitoring projects.
• Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerConservation organization partner for wildlife and habitat monitoring through forest data.
• Cool EffectminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCarbon reduction project platform partner for forest carbon initiatives.
• ASO (未见全称)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner organization in forest and climate initiatives.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Sylvera: Independent carbon credit ratings agency using remote sensing and ground data to rate nature-based projects. Competes with CTrees for budget share from carbon-market investors and project developers, and complements Verra/ART reliance on CTrees by providing secondary analytics.
• Global Forest Watch (World Resources Institute): WRI-operated platform providing near-real-time global forest monitoring using satellite data. Direct comparator to CTrees' LUCA and JMRV offerings, with overlapping audiences in governments and conservation organizations. Differentiated by CTrees' peer-reviewed carbon attribution and standards-body integrations.
• Upstream Tech: Remote sensing platform for landscape change and supply shed analytics whose Lens product integrates CTrees canopy-height data. Comparable in target customers (corporate ESG, conservation NGOs) and overlapping Earth-observation analytics for forest resilience.

Emerging players

• Stamped (Stamped Carbon): Nature-based carbon credit platform with project verification tooling. Competes with CTrees' Carbon Markets solution for project-developer relationships and buyer trust in ARR/REDD+ sourcing.
• NCX (Natural Capital Exchange): Forest carbon marketplace measuring project-level forest inventory and growth. Competes for buyer attention in the same ARR/REDD+ buyer segment as CTrees' Carbon Markets solution.
• Veritree: Reforestation monitoring and verification platform using remote sensing and ground data. Adjacent peer focused on planting-based project monitoring, comparable in deliverable (assurance-grade forest data) but narrower in geographic scope.
• Pachama: Marketplace for nature-based carbon credits that relies on remote sensing and MRV partners to verify project performance. Overlaps with CTrees on the buyer and project-developer side of the carbon-market stack, particularly for ARR/REDD+ sourcing.

Broad incumbents

• Planet Labs: Commercial satellite-imagery provider (Planet NICFI basemaps, used by CTrees) supplying the upstream geospatial layer on which CTrees' ML products are built. Serves a much broader customer set, but its forest-relevant imagery offerings overlap with parts of CTrees' stack.
• Microsoft Planetary Computer: Free planetary-scale geospatial analysis platform hosted by Microsoft Azure that hosts forest-monitoring datasets. Indirect competitor that risks commoditizing raw forest-change layers, even though CTrees' validated carbon attribution goes beyond what Planetary Computer offers out-of-the-box.

Others

• Earth Genome: Nonprofit environmental data collaborative producing verifiable nature-based data sets. Thematically similar nonprofit peer building open environmental data infrastructure that complements or competes for donor funding with CTrees.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCUUkj-U_u53Nu9zbFR4RUeg
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/ctrees
• Xx.com/CTrees_org

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about CTrees