Colorado Sun
3/5/22
Tamara Chuang
Colorado had a record year for venture capital investments, at more than $6 billion. Plus: unemployment fraud arrests, Target’s $24 hourly wage, another Starbucks unionizing and more.
f you hear about a company that has raised a bunch of money from investors, be on the lookout for lots of job openings.
That’s the case at tech-climate startup Project Canary, which recently announced it raised $111 million from investors. It was the second round of investment (its first round last year was much smaller, $10 million) and yes, the Denver company is hiring.
Project Canary, which helps oil and gas companies measure their methane emissions more precisely by using frequently-collected data, is a twist from the venture capital stories of just five or 10 years ago.
First of all, Project Canary is from Colorado, a state that attracts a sizable amount of investment but often pales when compared to investments in coastal states. Second, at more than $100 million, that’s a much larger investment than Colorado companies were getting just a few years ago, when they topped out at single or low double-digit millions of dollars. And third, Project Canary is a B Corp., a label that requires for-profit companies to be good to the Earth and help society. It’s not just about profit.
“There has never been more choice about where and how to work,” acknowledged CEO Chris Romer in an email. “Purpose-driven teams like ours who validate their mission, DEI, and wellness commitments with a B-Corp score — ours is 107, placing us in the top 5% globally — do well by doing good. We’re working on altering the course of climate change, the defining problem of our lives. That requires building an entirely new category of technology- and market-based solutions. There is no better mission.”
The company’s plan is to hire 10 people a month, which will triple its 68-person workforce to about 185 people over the next year. The company has posted 35 job openings in the past month, not all of them are in Denver and some are remote.