The global nature intelligence provider

Powerful nature intelligence underpinned by high-integrity nature data

Vision

NatureMetrics has the ambitious goal of being the number one provider of nature intelligence to enable the delivery of a nature positive economy.

Mission

Make biodiversity measurable at scale to underpin global goals and accelerate finance into nature.

Our story

NatureMetrics is a leading global nature intelligence company specialising in nature impact management. With deep expertise across multiple sectors, NatureMetrics helps businesses understand and mitigate their impact on nature. By providing innovative tools, insights, and strategies, NatureMetrics enables companies to develop sustainable practices and meet emerging nature and biodiversity regulations.

team of naturemtrics employees outside the office

How we got here

2014

purple fish swimming through hexagon

NatureMetrics was founded by a group of scientists who were determined to connect environmental managers with the data they need to monitor biodiversity.

Following initial support from the NERC Follow-On Fund in 2015, we raised £250k from Iceni Seedcorn Fund and a consortium of business angels to set up our first labs in early 2016. We opened our labs in April 2016 (just in time for newt season!) and have been delivering our commercial services ever since.

2015-2016

2016 - 2017

Our focus in 2016-2017 was on optimizing and validating our core services of eDNA metabarcoding for fish and other vertebrates, including the design of our sampling kits and refinement of laboratory and bioinformatics workflows. Early collaborations with Dr Micaela Hellstrom at Aquabiota (Sweden) and Dr Bernd Hänfling (University of Hull) were key to this stage of our journey, along with early pilot projects with ERM, Natural England and Jacobs.

2017-2018 saw steady and consistent growth of our team and our commercial offerings. With our core services validated, we began working on projects that were larger, more complex, and further afield, including a major baseline study of the Northern Peruvian Amazon with WWF Peru. Our Innovate UK-funded project, NemaCode, enabled the development of our soil and sediment analysis services.

2017 - 2018

2019

2019 saw the start of a major expansion following a £2.5M investment led by Green Angels Syndicate with TriplePoint. During this year we also worked on our first major EIA projects with the energy, mining and infrastructure sectors. This included freshwater, marine and terrestrial projects in the UK, Latin America and Africa.

In early 2020, Katie Critchlow joined us as CEO to steer us through this next phase of growth and consolidate our position as global leaders in this industry. Despite the challenges of 2020, we have continued to grow both in terms of the scale of our projects, the development of our products and services, and the size and expertise of our team, which has doubled in size over the course of the year. In particular, we have significantly expanded our business development and operations teams to reflect the now-global nature of our client base.

A GCRF-funded project in Mozambique helped us to further develop our logistical and technical capabilities while establishing a fantastic network of collaborators in Southern Africa. Meanwhile, we were selected for the HS2 accelerator, which has supported development of our digital strategy and facilitated a valuable large-scale demonstration project on woodland soil biodiversity. We have partnered with various international conservation NGOs to develop ambitious projects for global biodiversity conservation and to validate our solutions for business and biodiversity.

whale swimming through hexagon

2020

2021

As NatureMetrics enters a new growth phase in 2021, the new brand identity is launched to represent our global connections and cutting-edge technology.

NatureMetrics firmly establishes itself as a world leader in delivering nature data and intelligence, using cutting-edge technology to generate biodiversity data at scale using environmental DNA. NatureMetrics attends COP15 in Montreal and launches the world’s first nature performance monitoring service, powered by eDNA.

2022

2023

The Nature Intelligence platform is launched. The platform enables comprehensive nature impact monitoring and reporting, powered by eDNA.

Nature Strategy service is launched, headed by Pippa Howard. The service will support companies to advance their nature strategies and  meet incoming nature reporting requires, such as TNFD and SBTN.

sea turtle swimming through hexagon

2023

Our executive team

Dimple Patel
CEO
edna icon in blue
Dr. Kat Bruce - Founder Director
Role

Kat provides advice and support across the technical and project teams. She leads our interactions with the scientific community and is a thought leader in the industry.

Academia

Kat trained as a tropical ecologist, making many research trips to the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador and Peru. She gained a PhD in tropical ecology and DNA metabarcoding from the University of East Anglia supervised by Prof. Doug Yu, one of the pioneers of insect metabarcoding and a NatureMetrics scientific advisor. Kat also holds an MRes in Entomology from Imperial College and a BSc in Wildlife Biology from Anglia Ruskin University.

Significant Collaborations

Kat leads a working group on field and lab methods in the EU COST Action Project DNAqua-net. She has led the drafting of the first European standard for aquatic eDNA capture, is a Technical Expert on eDNA for the BSI, and is an advisor to the California Molecular Methods Workgroup. Kat currently sits on the steering group of the UK DNA Working Group and the steering committee of the UK Business and Biodiversity Forum. After completing her PhD in 2014, Kat set up NatureMetrics to bridge the gap between the powerful molecular tools being developed in the research world and the environmental managers who could benefit from their use. Her particular interest lies in how to bring together the worlds of research, industry and policy to drive forward advances in our capacity to monitor the natural world. Through her work in the EU COST Action project DNAqua-net, she actively works to help establish best practice for the use of DNA monitoring tools for aquatic biomonitoring in Europe and beyond.

Dr. Kat Bruce
Founder Director
Edwina Surtees
Chief Operating Officer
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Dr Juliet Jones - Chief Scientific Officer
Role

Juliet leads our operations team and all NatureMetrics business operations from day-to-day activities to planning the logistics of our global growth. Juliet ensures our science and services are delivered to a high standard, underpinning the success of our high-quality facilities and workflows.

Academia

Postdocs in drug research and viral engineering across a range of academic institutions, PhD in Cancer Biology from the Institute of Cancer Research, BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Surrey.

Significant Collaborations

Juliet has spent 13 years in academic and biotechnology institutions and has worked on a broad range of drug discovery projects. Her background as a molecular biologist gives Juliet a wealth of experience working in research and biotechnology laboratories. Having worked with DNA in lots of different ways, Juliet is now applying that range of skills to DNA-based monitoring with NatureMetrics.

Dr. Juliet Jones
Chief Scientific Officer
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Ian Davies - Chief Financial Officer
About

Ian is responsible for financial leadership, focusing on financial and cash management, operational excellence, scalable processes and delivering measurable value. Ian is an experienced finance and operational executive, with track record of executing business strategies and scaling companies in a wide range of sectors. Ian has a BSc in Engineering from Manchester University and is an FCA and BFP Qualified Chartered Accountant.

Ian Davies
Chief Financial Officer
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Pippa Howard - Chief Nature Strategist
About

Pippa Howard leads the Nature Strategy Consulting service at NatureMetrics. Pippa’s role involves providing tailored advice and technical guidance to organisations looking to drive innovation in their nature strategy.

Academia

Pippa holds degrees in Environmental Science, Marine Biology, Zoology and International Development. She is a registered Professional Natural Scientist with over 25 years’ experience in a variety of spheres of biodiversity conservation, environmental management, impact assessment, development and sustainability.

Background

Pippa Howard has been a key architect of corporate and national level Biodiversity Net Positive and Nature-positive frameworks and methodologies, and has been working across multiple sectors on all continents to develop strategic approaches to managing biodiversity. Pippa has a strong track record in implementing programmes of work following key standards such as IFC’s Performance Standard 6, the development of assessment and management frameworks that implement the mitigation hierarchy and a suite of projects that work towards achieving no net loss or a net gain of biodiversity. As a leader in her field, and the leader of a thriving cross-cutting global programme, matrix management and multi-disciplinary teamwork are central to her modus operandum.

Pippa Howard
Chief Nature Strategist
Dan Swan
VP, Data and Engineering
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Bob Ellis - Non-Executive Director
Academia

Bob holds a B.Ed (Hons) in Educational Theory from the University of London.

Significant Collaborations

Bob is a Restructuring Specialist and has particular expertise in complex operational and financial turnaround in Europe, Asia and the USA. As an experienced Investor and Director of businesses at all stages, Bob brings a range of strengths that support the global growth of NatureMetrics.

Bob Ellis
Non-Executive Director
Christian Jølck
Board Member
edna icon in blue
Dr. Kat Bruce - Founder Director
Role

Kat provides advice and support across the technical and project teams. She leads our interactions with the scientific community and is a thought leader in the industry.

Academia

Kat trained as a tropical ecologist, making many research trips to the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador and Peru. She gained a PhD in tropical ecology and DNA metabarcoding from the University of East Anglia supervised by Prof. Doug Yu, one of the pioneers of insect metabarcoding and a NatureMetrics scientific advisor. Kat also holds an MRes in Entomology from Imperial College and a BSc in Wildlife Biology from Anglia Ruskin University.

Significant Collaborations

Kat leads a working group on field and lab methods in the EU COST Action Project DNAqua-net. She has led the drafting of the first European standard for aquatic eDNA capture, is a Technical Expert on eDNA for the BSI, and is an advisor to the California Molecular Methods Workgroup. Kat currently sits on the steering group of the UK DNA Working Group and the steering committee of the UK Business and Biodiversity Forum.

After completing her PhD in 2014, Kat set up NatureMetrics to bridge the gap between the powerful molecular tools being developed in the research world and the environmental managers who could benefit from their use. Her particular interest lies in how to bring together the worlds of research, industry and policy to drive forward advances in our capacity to monitor the natural world. Through her work in the EU COST Action project DNAqua-net, she actively works to help establish best practice for the use of DNA monitoring tools for aquatic biomonitoring in Europe and beyond.

kat bruce
Dr. Kat Bruce
Founder Director
edna icon in blue
Dr Juliet Jones - Chief Operating Officer
Role

Juliet leads our operations team and all NatureMetrics business operations from day-to-day activities to planning the logistics of our global growth. Juliet ensures our science and services are delivered to a high standard, underpinning the success of our high-quality facilities and workflows.

Academia

Postdocs in drug research and viral engineering across a range of academic institutions, PhD in Cancer Biology from the Institute of Cancer Research, BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Surrey.

Significant Collaborations

Juliet has spent 13 years in academic and biotechnology institutions and has worked on a broad range of drug discovery projects. Her background as a molecular biologist gives Juliet a wealth of experience working in research and biotechnology laboratories. Having worked with DNA in lots of different ways, Juliet is now applying that range of skills to DNA-based monitoring with NatureMetrics.

dr juliet jones
Dr. Juliet Jones
Chief Operating Officer
edna icon in blue
Charles Gibbons - Chief Technology Officer
About

Charles is responsible for IT strategy and implementation focusing on both front-end digital technologies and relevant platforms that enable growth. He is always open to help on any challenge. Charles like to support repeatable scalable processes and to promote innovation through technology.

Academia

Charles has a BA in English Literature, a Msc in Maths and a LLM in Law.

Significant Collaborations

Rather uniquely, Charles has worked on 5G for EE and Covid at the Francis Crick Institute.

charles gibbons
Charles Gibbons
Chief Technology Officer
edna icon in blue
Bob Ellis - Non-Executive Director
Academia

Bob holds a B.Ed (Hons) in Educational Theory from the University of London.

Significant Collaborations

Bob is a Restructuring Specialist and has particular expertise in complex operational and financial turnaround in Europe, Asia and the USA. As an experienced Investor and Director of businesses at all stages, Bob brings a range of strengths that support the global growth of NatureMetrics.

bob ellis
Bob Ellis
Non-Executive Director
edna icon in blue
Pippa Howard - Chief Nature Strategist
About

Pippa Howard leads the Nature Strategy Consulting service at NatureMetrics. Pippa’s role involves providing tailored advice and technical guidance to organisations looking to drive innovation in their nature strategy.

Academia

Pippa holds degrees in Environmental Science, Marine Biology, Zoology and International Development. She is a registered Professional Natural Scientist with over 25 years’ experience in a variety of spheres of biodiversity conservation, environmental management, impact assessment, development and sustainability.

Background

Pippa Howard has been a key architect of corporate and national level Biodiversity Net Positive and Nature-positive frameworks and methodologies, and has been working across multiple sectors on all continents to develop strategic approaches to managing biodiversity. Pippa has a strong track record in implementing programmes of work following key standards such as IFC’s Performance Standard 6, the development of assessment and management frameworks that implement the mitigation hierarchy and a suite of projects that work towards achieving no net loss or a net gain of biodiversity. As a leader in her field, and the leader of a thriving cross-cutting global programme, matrix management and multi-disciplinary teamwork are central to her modus operandum.

pippa howard
Pippa Howard
Chief Nature Strategist
edna icon in blue
Pippa Howard - Chief Nature Strategist
About

Pippa Howard leads the Nature Strategy Consulting service at NatureMetrics. Pippa’s role involves providing tailored advice and technical guidance to organisations looking to drive innovation in their nature strategy.

Academia

Pippa holds degrees in Environmental Science, Marine Biology, Zoology and International Development. She is a registered Professional Natural Scientist with over 25 years’ experience in a variety of spheres of biodiversity conservation, environmental management, impact assessment, development and sustainability.

Background

Pippa Howard has been a key architect of corporate and national level Biodiversity Net Positive and Nature-positive frameworks and methodologies, and has been working across multiple sectors on all continents to develop strategic approaches to managing biodiversity. Pippa has a strong track record in implementing programmes of work following key standards such as IFC’s Performance Standard 6, the development of assessment and management frameworks that implement the mitigation hierarchy and a suite of projects that work towards achieving no net loss or a net gain of biodiversity. As a leader in her field, and the leader of a thriving cross-cutting global programme, matrix management and multi-disciplinary teamwork are central to her modus operandum.

jareat schrieber
Jared Schrieber
Chair of the Board of Directors
edna icon in blue
Pippa Howard - Chief Nature Strategist
About

Pippa Howard leads the Nature Strategy Consulting service at NatureMetrics. Pippa’s role involves providing tailored advice and technical guidance to organisations looking to drive innovation in their nature strategy.

Academia

Pippa holds degrees in Environmental Science, Marine Biology, Zoology and International Development. She is a registered Professional Natural Scientist with over 25 years’ experience in a variety of spheres of biodiversity conservation, environmental management, impact assessment, development and sustainability.

Background

Pippa Howard has been a key architect of corporate and national level Biodiversity Net Positive and Nature-positive frameworks and methodologies, and has been working across multiple sectors on all continents to develop strategic approaches to managing biodiversity. Pippa has a strong track record in implementing programmes of work following key standards such as IFC’s Performance Standard 6, the development of assessment and management frameworks that implement the mitigation hierarchy and a suite of projects that work towards achieving no net loss or a net gain of biodiversity. As a leader in her field, and the leader of a thriving cross-cutting global programme, matrix management and multi-disciplinary teamwork are central to her modus operandum.

christian joick
Christian Jølck
Board Member
edna icon in blue
Pippa Howard - Chief Nature Strategist
About

Pippa Howard leads the Nature Strategy Consulting service at NatureMetrics. Pippa’s role involves providing tailored advice and technical guidance to organisations looking to drive innovation in their nature strategy.

Academia

Pippa holds degrees in Environmental Science, Marine Biology, Zoology and International Development. She is a registered Professional Natural Scientist with over 25 years’ experience in a variety of spheres of biodiversity conservation, environmental management, impact assessment, development and sustainability.

Background

Pippa Howard has been a key architect of corporate and national level Biodiversity Net Positive and Nature-positive frameworks and methodologies, and has been working across multiple sectors on all continents to develop strategic approaches to managing biodiversity. Pippa has a strong track record in implementing programmes of work following key standards such as IFC’s Performance Standard 6, the development of assessment and management frameworks that implement the mitigation hierarchy and a suite of projects that work towards achieving no net loss or a net gain of biodiversity. As a leader in her field, and the leader of a thriving cross-cutting global programme, matrix management and multi-disciplinary teamwork are central to her modus operandum.

david fletcher
David Fletcher
Chief Revenue Officer
edna icon in blue
Ian Davies - Chief Financial Officer
About

Ian is responsible for financial leadership, focusing on financial and cash management, operational excellence, scalable processes and delivering measurable value. Ian is an experienced finance and operational executive, with track record of executing business strategies and scaling companies in a wide range of sectors. Ian has a BSc in Engineering from Manchester University and is an FCA and BFP Qualified Chartered Accountant.

ian davies
Ian Davies
Chief Financial Officer

Awards, partnerships, and media

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Our Guiding Principles

Transparency

NatureMetrics are committed to transparency across methodologies, operations and services. We will educate you about the tools you can use, ensuring the trust and confidence built in those tools are just as validated as the results they yield.

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Collaboration

NatureMetrics seek to interact openly with the global research community. Our approach ensures efficient knowledge exchange and empowers us to provide you with industry-leading solutions that enhance the environmental management of biodiversity.

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Excellence

We exert our very best into all that we do. You can rest assured we will go that extra mile for you, as we do for each other.

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Honesty

We believe strong relationships are vital to success. We know our success is attributed, in part, by the fact we place honesty at the heart of the relationships and engagements we build.

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Advancement

NatureMetrics pushes the boundaries of genetic sciences, innovation and services. We are unafraid of challenges, bold in trying new things and daring in our quest to make biodiversity universally measurable.

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