Wendy Burton has been planting Empress Splendor trees for about two decades. With help from crowdfunded investors from Wefunder, along with accredited investors participating in a Regulation D 506(c) offering, her company, World Tree, will plant thousands of these carbon sucking trees across the western hemisphere. She says the tree is the fastest-growing hardwood tree on the planet. While it grows in a range of climates, its method of reproduction limits its threat as an invasive species. Because the tree grows so quickly, it sequesters more carbon than other trees. Investors typically buy an acre’s worth of trees—110 trees—but rather than receive the revenue from a particular acre of trees, investors get a pro-rata share of all the trees planted in the current year’s crop when harvested in ten years. Farmers who plant and care for the trees receive half the revenue; investors and World Tree split the other half of the revenue. The first harvest, she says, could produce a financial return of nine to ten times the initial investment. The Wefunder campaign raised almost $1 million; the investment proceeds from the Reg D offering are larger. #final50
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