NCX

Market position

NCX positions itself as an unbiased intermediary for the more than 290 million acres held by US family forest owners, a group it describes as lacking the in-house forestry expertise, software and market access available to large timber companies. It set a record in 2021 for the largest forest carbon project by acreage in the contiguous United States with its first program cycle, and operated in a voluntary carbon market that exceeded $1 billion in 2021, up from $473 million in 2020 and $320 million in 2019.

Free, professional-grade property analytics for smallholders; remote-sensing-based measurement that removes the cost of manual tree counting that had excluded small owners (in McKean County, Pennsylvania only four of about 19,000 landowners, covering 5% of acreage, were paid for forest carbon before NCX); and a stated stance of unbiased advice after exiting project development to avoid conflicts with the developers it refers landowners to.

Technology

Satellite and remote-sensing imagery combined with machine learning to produce a high-resolution forest inventory of the United States, known as Basemap, prototyped with Microsoft's planetary computer after acceptance into Microsoft's AI for Earth program in 2018. The platform assesses an uploaded property in under five minutes to match it to eligible programs, and repeated satellite measurements at the start and end of a contract year verified carbon performance. LandBook applies guided-conversation software to generate a written record grounded in the owner's property data.

Go-to-market

Direct online self-service sign-up for a free landowner account, followed by consultations with NCX representatives and foresters; an educational Learning Hub for landowner content; and a marketplace that routes landowners to program partners and project developers. On the buyer side NCX previously sold carbon credits directly to corporations.

Family forest owners and other private landowners across the United States, from roughly 40-acre parcels to multi-thousand-acre properties; historically also corporate carbon credit buyers pursuing net-zero goals, plus federal agencies and conservation groups that bought forest inventory data, and project developers and forestry service providers.

Geography

United States-focused, serving landowners across at least 39 states, with San Francisco given as the datelined location of its Series B announcement; the 2022 financing was intended to support expansion outside the United States.

History

Operating first as SilviaTerra, the company sold forest inventory data to government and conservation buyers. In 2018 it was accepted into Microsoft's AI for Earth program and used Microsoft's planetary computer to build Basemap, then launched a pilot in Pennsylvania paying landowners to defer timber harvest. Rebranded NCX, it ran its first program cycle in 2021, described as the largest forest carbon project by acreage in the contiguous US, and raised a $50 million Series B announced in March 2022, bringing total funding to $74.4 million. After layoffs in 2022, a further restructuring cut 40% of staff and refocused the company on landowner-facing data, program discovery and referrals rather than developing carbon projects itself. The current product emphasis is the LandBook land-legacy record.

Risks & controversies

NCX operated in the unregulated voluntary carbon offset market, which coverage notes has been used by companies for greenwashing; its CEO has publicly said forest carbon project design and measurement have often failed to deliver real climate impact. Carbon contracts were one-year, trust-based commitments verified by satellite measurement, and the economics could be unfavorable for landowners: a property worth roughly $10,000 in a timber harvest might yield about $600 per year in carbon payments, roughly 17 years to break even. The company also conducted two rounds of layoffs, including a 40% staff reduction, citing a market that did not evolve as quickly as expected, and it exited its own carbon project development business.