A ten-year mandate, from 2026 to 2036. The Foundation will become operational in the second half of 2026.
ZURICH, 8 MAY 2026, Zurich Climate Week · The Nature Finance Accelerator (NFA) today announces the start of its spin-off from NatureFinance, becoming an independent Swiss Foundation with registration in progress in Canton Zurich. Once authorised, the Foundation will hold a ten-year mandate, from 2026 to 2036, to build the enabling infrastructure for a high-integrity Nature Market in Switzerland.
NFA designs, tests, and scales the financial mechanisms and technology platforms that channel private capital toward nature, and undertakes the market creation work that turns those instruments into market practice and develops the professional capacity to sustain them, across conservation, restoration, and regenerative agriculture in Switzerland and global markets.
The Foundation is time-bound by design. When it dissolves in 2036, the market inherits everything it has built: open-source tools, reusable frameworks, and trained professionals.
The Foundation works through three domains:
1. Nature Finance: structuring innovative financial mechanisms and bringing them to financial close, channelling public, philanthropic, and private capital across conservation, restoration, and regenerative agriculture
2. Nature Tech: building and maintaining the open-source measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) system for Swiss ecosystems, the Nature Tech Discovery Platform that maps and connects the nature-tech landscape, and partnerships that accelerate technology transfer between Switzerland and global markets
3. Nature Market Creation: influencing market practice through open-source frameworks released as public goods, developing opportunity-focused narratives that frame nature as an investment opportunity, and training the next generation of nature finance professionals
Marie-Laure Schaufelberger, Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees, NFA Foundation
“Preserving and restoring nature sits at the heart of economic sovereignty, future resilience and our collective wellbeing. The bottleneck for investing in nature today is alignment between fiduciary duty, finance-grade measurement, and the instruments that turn institutional willingness into capital flow. The NFA Foundation has been set up to do exactly that, acting locally while building global linkages for high-integrity nature markets.”
InTent, the platform co-founded and co-chaired by André and Rosalie Hoffmann to back high-conviction sustainability initiatives, joins as founding partner of the new Foundation, committing CHF 7.5 million in catalytic capital to complete the spin-off, build institutional infrastructure, hire core staff, and deliver on the ten-year mandate. Kellerhals Carrard, one of Switzerland’s leading law firms, provides pro bono legal counsel throughout, from the design of the Foundation’s governance to its registration in Canton Zurich.
André Hoffmann, Co-Chair of the Advisory Board, NFA Foundation, and Co-Founder, InTent
“Nature has been treated as free for too long. Fixing that requires patient institutions, built to hold a long horizon. Switzerland needs the enabling infrastructure for a high-integrity Nature Market to develop properly, and that is what the NFA Foundation has been set up to build. InTent is proud to be its founding partner, and to back a team and a mandate worthy of that ambition.”
The initiative began in November 2023, when the State Secretariat for International Finance convened a roundtable on nature finance in Bern. Mark Halle, the Foundation’s incoming Chairman, was at that first meeting and went on to lead the national consultation that followed throughout 2024, engaging more than fifty institutions across Swiss finance, academia, policy, and industry. In December 2024, at Building Bridges in Geneva, André Hoffmann announced the project that would later become the NFA. NatureFinance has hosted, seeded, and incubated the initiative since January 2025, and continues to fund and host the team through to the Foundation’s authorisation in the second half of 2026. Throughout the incubation, Mark Halle recruited the founding CEO and has advised the management team.
Patrick Odier, Chairman, Building Bridges, and President, Swiss Sustainable Finance
“Building Bridges has been the launchpad for some of the most innovative sustainable finance initiatives globally. The NFA Foundation continues that trajectory. Nature is now the frontier for Swiss finance, and Switzerland is uniquely positioned to lead. With a clear mandate and a strong team, the Foundation is equipped to deliver with the integrity our financial centre demands.”
Once authorised, the NFA Foundation will be governed by a Board of Trustees chaired by Mark Halle, with Marie-Laure Schaufelberger as Vice-Chair and Karim Maizar as a Trustee. The Advisory Board is co-chaired by André Hoffmann and Judson Berkey. The founding executive management team comprises five Co-Founders: Henrique Martins as CEO, alongside Mauricio Benitez, Nikko Karlo Robles, Matthias Häni, and Jacqueline Alemayehu.
Henrique Martins, CEO and Co-Founder, NFA Foundation
“The mandate is clear, and the founding team is in place to deliver it. The Foundation receives this trust with humility. We will earn it through the work, day after day, across the decade ahead.”
About the Nature Finance Accelerator Foundation
The Nature Finance Accelerator (NFA) is a public-benefit Swiss Foundation with registration in progress in Canton Zurich, with a ten-year mandate from 2026 to 2036. NFA builds the enabling infrastructure for a high-integrity Nature Market.
www.linkedin.com/company/naturefinanceaccelerator
About NatureFinance
NatureFinance is a non-profit think tank, solutions lab, and global catalyst that designs, tests, and scales financial tools, policy frameworks, and economic strategies to align global finance with an economy that works for nature, climate, and people.
www.naturefinance.net
About InTent
InTent is a Swiss-based platform co-founded and co-chaired by André and Rosalie Hoffmann. It convenes companies, citizens, academia, public institutions, and NGOs around action-based partnerships for sustainable prosperity.
www.intent-for-change.org
About Kellerhals Carrard
Kellerhals Carrard is one of Switzerland’s leading law firms, counting more than 350 legal experts.
www.kellerhals-carrard.ch
Media contact
Jacqueline Alemayehu
jacqueline.alemayehu@naturefinanceaccelerator.ch
