Ponterra, the vertically integrated reforestation company restoring degraded land in Panama and Mexico, today announced a USD 270,000 project finance loan from Fondo Nimbus. The loan is the first known financing vehicle to integrate biodiversity credits alongside carbon credits as part of its repayment structure, marking a significant milestone not only for Ponterra, but for the emerging voluntary biodiversity market as a whole. The transaction offers a concrete proof point that biodiversity outcomes can form part of a credible, investable financial architecture for nature-based solutions.
The loan closely aligns with the design of Ponterra’s innovative project finance vehicle under development with support from the Catalytic Climate Finance Facility (CC Facility), the Biodiversity Bridge Vehicle (BBV). The BBV addresses a structural challenge facing nature-based solutions: while demand for high-integrity restoration is rising, few financing mechanisms exist that can properly value and incentivize biodiversity outcomes into bankable project structures. Biodiversity restoration, monitoring, and verification add real costs, yet biodiversity credits remain nascent, making it difficult for financiers to invest in the market.
The BBV proposes a practical solution: pairing offtake-backed carbon credit revenues with the upside potential of biodiversity credits. With carbon revenues as the anchor, biodiversity credits provide additional value as the market matures.
The project loan Ponterra secured with Nimbus demonstrates the precise financial behaviour the BBV aims to standardise and scale. The project loan is a concrete proof point demonstrating how blended credit structures can deliver biodiversity-rich restoration while meeting investor risk and return requirements.
The innovative repayment structure of the Fondo Nimbus loan aims to derisk nature-based carbon projects by attracting outcomes-based investment capital into the early stages of project execution. The loan will be repaid through a combination of upfront capital from carbon investors, as well as a revenue share from future carbon and biodiversity credit sales.
This structure reinforces the central insight behind the BBV. That is to say, natural assets can be financed today by combining established and emerging credit classes in a way that derisks investment and lowers project costs while incentivizing ecosystem restoration.
The loan will support the early stages of operations for Ponterra’s 10,000 Ha reforestation project in Mexico, La Esperanza, the largest ARR project in the country. Designed to scale to over 100,000 Ha, La Esperanza restores degraded agricultural lands into biodiverse native forest while integrating rotational grazing to improve soil structure, reduce erosion, and support regenerative cattle operations.
In the first 10,000 Ha of La Esperanza, Ponterra will plant more than 6 million native trees from more than 50 different species. The project will also create more than 200 local jobs and strengthen community prosperity through employment, skills training, and revenue-sharing. La Esperanza is forecast to deliver over USD 200 million in community benefits in the next 40 years.
By providing a loan for La Esperanza, Fondo Nimbus is catalysing project operations and demonstrating a replicable financing pathway for large-scale ecosystem restoration that aligns investor returns with measurable ecological uplift and meaningful socioeconomic impact. This investment signals not only Fondo Nimbus’ commitment to unlocking immediate restoration outcomes, but also an unparalleled willingness to develop emerging financial structures focused on and designed for nature. Fondo Nimbus is setting a precedent for the market, demonstrating that capital can be mobilised to regenerate ecosystems, strengthen communities, and confront climate change and biodiversity loss at scale, honouring its mission to safeguard a better future for Mexico’s people and the land they depend upon.
Ponterra’s transaction with Fondo Nimbus provides one of the clearest market signals to date that biodiversity credits can form a financeable component of project level capital structures. For the wider market, the model offers a replicable blueprint for mobilising capital into biodiversity-rich restoration at a lower cost of capital. For Ponterra, it reinforces the scalability of its approach to integrating high-quality carbon and biodiversity restoration across its projects.
QUOTES
“Ponterra’s mission to reverse climate change, restore biodiversity, and uplift rural communities depends not only on best-in-class science, operations, and community engagement, but also on access to competitive, mission-aligned capital that enables restoration at scale. Fondo Nimbus has proven to be a pioneer in the nature-based solutionsspace, and we are fortunate to partner with them as we work together to restore native ecosystems and strengthen rural livelihoods in Mexico”
Leigh Madeira, Head of Investments, Ponterra
“We are excited to be partners in Ponterra’s project in Mexico focused on landscape and biodiversity regeneration through community stewardship. Ponterra’s deep impact mission is fully embedded in the project design and management, and is equally reflected in the financing instrument we co-designed. The intention of our collaboration is to align our collective values and vision with the economic and risk profile of the project, aiming to establish a blueprint for impact investment capital to be engaged in the early stages of long-term nature based solutions. We are looking forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Ponterra and the communities they serve.”
Josephine Korijn, CEO Fondo Nimbus
“This transaction reflects the kind of catalytic financing pathway the CC Facility is designed to accelerate. CC Facility’s support to Ponterra helps to scale its operations across Latin America and mobilize capital from diverse funding sources. We are happy that this partnership helps BBV expand its reach and deliver financing solutions.”
Carla Orrego, Senior Manager, Climate Policy Initiative
ABOUT
About Ponterra
Ponterra is a commercial developer and operator of biodiversity-rich reforestation projects with the mission to restore nature at scale. Ponterra develops high-quality carbon projects that sequester carbon, restore biodiversity, and uplift rural communities through a vertically integrated model that blends ecology, operations, finance, and technology. Ponterra’s portfolio includes large-scale projects in Panama and Mexico, as well as pioneering biodiversity credits as the only ARR project developer selected for Verra’s SD VISta Nature Credit pilot program. For more information, please visit https://ponterra.eco/.
About Fondo Nimbus
Fondo Nimbus is an impact investment fund with the purpose of safeguarding and sharing the promise of a better future by honoring the roots of Mexicans. We support initiatives within the areas of education and environment that consider systemic change as a blueprint for growth, leverage collaboration to achieve greater impact, and see financial sustainability as a fundamental piece of their long-term development. For more information, please visit: https://fondonimbus.com.mx/
About the CC Facility
The Catalytic Climate Finance Facility (CC Facility) is a solution to scale climate finance by filling a market gap in mobilizing private capital. The CC Facility provides a range of services to market-ready blended finance vehicles in developing economies to help them expand their reach. Through grant funding, technical support, and a learning hub, the CC Facility accelerates the implementation of high-impact financial structures while providing resources to the broader ecosystem on how to best catalyze climate finance. The initiative is a partnership between Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and Convergence.
About the Biodiversity Bridge Vehicle (BBV)
The Biodiversity Bridge Vehicle is an innovative project finance platform designed to mobilise private capital into high-integrity native species reforestation projects that generate both carbon and biodiversity credits. By blending concessional and commercial finance, the BBV creates a bankable structure that supports biodiversity restoration, de-risks early stage investment, and enables projects to capture the future value of biodiversity uplift alongside established carbon markets. Developed with support from the Catalytic Climate Finance Facility, the BBV aims to scale nature-based solutions through transparent, outcome-based financing that strengthens ecosystems and delivers long-term benefits for communities. https://www.ccfacility.org/portfolio/biodiversity-bridge-vehicle
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Ponterra
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Leigh Madeira
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Bobby Leacock
Fondo Nimbus
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Convergence
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Sijia Yi
CPI
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Daniela Alvarez