London-based Epoch has closed a $4.25m (about £3.2m) seed round co-led by Burnt Island Ventures and Sand River, taking its total funding to $6.26m. Burnt Island partner Christine Boyle joins the board, and the company has launched a self-serve compliance product for small and mid-sized businesses.
Epoch was founded in London in 2023 by chief executive Jinal Surti and chief technology officer William Ouellette. It produces what it calls first-mile data: location-linked evidence on deforestation, legality, emissions and water stress for the farms, plantations and mines at the start of commodity supply chains. Instead of relying only on supplier questionnaires, it uses satellite data and automated research to map where raw materials come from.
Surti was an early employee at Ripple and a founding executive at payments company Menai. He studied engineering at the University of Waterloo and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.
The deal
The $4.25m seed was co-led by Burnt Island Ventures, a US fund that invests in water, and Sand River. Impact Loop, which first reported the round, said both firms were existing backers that increased their stakes and that a family office also took part. The valuation was not disclosed.
The two figures imply Epoch raised about $2m before this round. With the seed, the company has raised $6.26m in total.
Boyle's board seat gives the lead investors governance as well as a bigger stake ahead of any Series A. Epoch's website also lists Amadeus Capital Partners, Ripple, Cerulean, Blizzard and MCV among its backers. It has not said whether any of them took part in this round.
The money will go into product, infrastructure and the commercial team. Epoch says it has 14 staff.
The business
Epoch sells to large companies mainly through partner platforms. Altana, Assent, Resilinc and 3E have each integrated its data or are doing so, giving more than 30,000 enterprises access to it. Epoch says it has screened more than 12,000 suppliers for enterprise customers over the past six months.
Alongside the round, it launched a self-serve product for small and mid-sized businesses, starting with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Customers can begin with as little as a list of supplier names. Epoch then traces the production plots, assesses the risk of deforestation and illegal production, and produces a Due Diligence Statement ready to file with the EU's TRACES system.
The timing follows the regulation's deadlines. The EUDR applies to large and medium operators from 30 December 2026 and to most micro and small operators from 30 June 2027. It covers cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood.
"We are approaching profitability," Surti told Impact Loop.
What's next
The self-serve launch takes Epoch beyond the partner channels it has relied on so far, and gives it direct customers of its own. Investor interest in supply chain traceability has been growing: Treefera, which traces commodities back to where they were grown, raised a $30m Series B in June 2025.
If Epoch reaches profitability on $6.26m of total funding, it will have more say over when it raises a Series A and at what valuation, and its existing investors will go into that round with larger stakes.
Original sources: Epoch — https://epoch.blue/article/epoch-raises-6-26m ; Impact Loop — https://impactloop.com/article/exclusive-water-and-nature-vcs-back-startup-tracing-raw-materials-to-their-source
Updated 26 Oct 2026: this article has been updated with the round size, total funding and board appointment set out in Epoch's announcement, which was published after the first version. A reference to US expansion has been removed; the company says the funding will go into product, infrastructure and its commercial team.
