Two years since Earthshot: How NatureMetrics has made biodiversity data measurable at scale
Ahead of this week's 2026 Earthshot Prize finalists announcement, we're taking a look back at our progress since being named a finalist in 2024.
The Earthshot Prize, the environmental award founded by Prince William to find and scale solutions to the world's biggest environmental challenges, is one of the most prestigious in our industry. This week, a new cohort finds out who is in the running. Two years on, it feels like the right moment to look back at what that nomination helped set in motion.
2024
Back in 2024, NatureMetrics Founder, Kat Bruce, sat down with the team to discuss who we are, what we do, and why winning the Earthshot Prize would mean so much.
The awards night
What an amazing night! There's a particular kind of infectious and inspiring energy to standing on a green carpet with sixteen other finalists, all convinced their idea could change the world.
$25m Series B funding to accelerate and scale biodiversity monitoring
Securing our Series B funding allowed us to enhance the Nature Intelligence Platform, expand our data, AI and digital capabilities, and broaden our international reach.
10% of the earth surveyed with our eDNA kits
4.5 million+ species detections and counting, 400+ threatened species detected, on 10+ years of validated, ground-truthed data - and we’re not slowing down! Here is a behind the scenes look at our world class state-of-the art lab, and how we process every eDNA sample.
2025
A visit from Prince William
In January 2025, Prince William visited our Guildford HQ and labs. He joined local schoolchildren and science communicator Big Manny for a hands-on eDNA sampling demonstration, then toured the labs to see how a litre of water becomes a full picture of an ecosystem.
A new lab partnership in Brazil
Expanding our science arm and local capacity in one of the world's most biodiverse regions. Through a partnership with Firjan SENAI, a renowned private RD&I network of national reach, NatureMetrics is helping to unlock biodiversity intelligence across Brazilian ecosystems where high-integrity data is most needed.
2026
Global Nature Risk joins the product stack
Understand, prioritise and act on nature-related risk across entire portfolios with Global Nature Risk. Built to provide businesses with a dynamic and quarterly updated view of nature-related risk across 1000s of sites at once.
For years, nature-related risk assessments have served individual sites well but aren't scalable to full portfolios. Global Nature Risk launched to change that. Not to replace careful site-level work, but to bring the core question, which sites carry the most nature-related risk, and why, within reach of a whole portfolio, without a six-month project per site. Find out more why we built it, and what it can measure.
In good company
One of the best parts of being a finalist is the cohort of companies you join and the opportunities that can come to life as a result. Two of the companies from our year have now collaborated with NatureMetrics on eDNA projects.
Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative
2024 Earthshot Prize Winner
Using our eDNA kits Altyn Dala built the first vertebrate freshwater baseline for a protected area with decades of data gaps, detecting the Saiga antelope well beyond its expected seasonal range.
Coast 4C
2024 finalist
Worked with NatureMetrics to detect 1,082 species records in a week that would have taken months by conventional survey, confirming 9 IUCN-listed vulnerable and near-threatened species along the way.
It's a reminder that the Earthshot Prize community is more than just the awards. It’s an opportunity to connect with like-minded companies that are pushing towards the same ultimate goal - to do right by nature, and preserve it for future generations.
Onwards
To everyone named a finalist this week: congratulations, and welcome to the 2026 cohort. Let's get to work.
