Over the past couple of months I have had the pleasure of immersing myself in the wonderful sector of VC that is ClimateTech as a Scout for Carbon13. Along the way I have met some truly innovative founders with extensive backgrounds.
As Carbon13 invests in both software and deeptech, I was able to talk to founders working on deeptech solutions in energy, built environment, material science and carbon accounting about the unique challenges they were facing. When it comes to fundraising, there’s a higher barrier to entry for deeptech ventures as they need earlier and bolder funding strategies. This continues to be a double blow to women who already struggle to raise money for even proven profitable ventures.
To further corroborate this, the recent State of European Tech report reports funding towards women founders have since decreased in comparison to the year before (from 3% to 1%). Organisations, (like Amazon), are recognising this funding gap in the traditionally male-led sector of ClimateTech, and are rolling out initiatives to fast-track innovations by female ClimateTech entrepreneurs.
Similarly, Carbon13 has ensured to maintain a steady number of women founders participating as operators over their four cohorts with a programme specifically tailored to assist with raising those barriers to entry.
Carbon13 is the Venture Builder for the climate emergency whose aims are to surround thousands of entrepreneurs (without existing teams) to build ventures with the potential to decarbonise 440m tonnes of CO2e per annum.
36/76 of our co-founders over their four cohorts identify as women (32%), with this concentration being steadily maintained with each cohort:
- Cohort 1: 6/18 (33%) across 7 ventures
- Cohort 2: 7/ 22 (32%) across 10 ventures
- Cohort 3: 9/ 33 (27%) across 12 ventures (with Open Hydro having an all female team)
- Cohort 4: 9/ 28 across (32%) 12 ventures
Why you should consider Carbon13’s Venture Launchpad as a woman in ClimateTech
In May 2023, Carbon13 will roll out the next cohort of startups enrolled onto their Venture Launchpad arm, a 20-week accelerator programme for existing ClimateTech teams. This was made in partnership with Barclays Eagle Labs, to scale climate ventures whose target is to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by 10 million tonnes per year.
This year’s focus has been placed on the energy and built environment sectors as well as ensuring the opportunity was rolled out to as many women founders as possible.
Naturally, ClimateTech ventures require early and bold funding due to capital-intensive technology and processes to find market fit in the ever-changing climate risk landscape. There are still many barriers that women in ClimateTech face when it comes to capital access, some being:
- Lack of a strong carbon case
- Network effects
- Absence of early customer discovery (due to capital-intensive MVP development)
- Institutional biases
- Lack of connections to initial strategic partners
The Venture Launchpad seeks to address these barriers in turn to help springboard founders to the next stage of their fundraising journey.
There are two startups from their pilot programme that have paved the way for women-led teams:
Pattern Project, Shruti Grover
Pattern Project is a clothing micro-factory startup. They have developed machinery and software to enable independent fashion brands, haberdasheries, high street retailers or tailoring companies to manufacture custom-fit clothing in-store. They are increasing both the sustainability and economic productivity of small-batch production and encourage a shift to UK on-shoring of manufacture.
Their software allows customers to enter their measurements to modify a pattern and a live preview. Once payment is received, the generated pattern is sent to the desktop machine which nests the garment for the most efficient use of fabric and cuts it.
Natural Building Systems, Chloe Donovan
NBS’ core aim is to design more efficient, affordable and environmentally friendly buildings.
They are developing a unique prefabricated modular solution which is a breathable, demountable and sustainable SIPs system that provides a solution for radically decarbonising the construction industry.
They incorporate hemp into their solution for sustainable buildings as its outstanding properties means that it absorbs large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere as it grows, and makes the soil healthier too.
In Phase 1, founders on the programme will be spending a minimum of 5 hours a week garnering support on the following areas:
- Investment readiness:
- Helping founders build a strong venture case for pre-seed investment and further VC funding - Building a strong carbon case:
-Progress towards milestones such as product/market fit, customer discovery, value proposition validation
-Receive structured individualised support tailored to venture’s starting point
- Understand how to push their venture’s potential to 10 million tonnes of emissions mitigation
- Build carbon intelligence to empower the founding team to make long-term decisions based on carbon - Plugging into a world class ecosystem spanning the UK and EU, including a community of Domain Experts, Entrepreneurs in Residence, Carbon Experts and alumni
At the end of Phase 1, each startup will pitch to the Carbon13 Investment Committee for £120,000 in pre-seed funding. Successful ventures will proceed to Phase 2.
Brilliant women-led ClimateTech ventures I have encountered as a Carbon13 Scout
During my search to find the best women-led ClimateTech ventures for the next cohort of Venture Launchpad, I came across the following startups I believe deserve more acknowledgment with the quality solutions they are developing:
⚡️Lambda Energy, Monica Saavedra
The sun doesn’t have enough red to drive photosynthesis optimally. Today, the proportion of red light for plants is increased via artificial lighting, but electricity is costly. Lambda’s sun changing film can be layered onto existing or new greenhouses and increase food production by around 20%, with no electricity.
🛠 LendoCare, Solomia Boretska
With ageing populations growing over profusely globally, more customers than ever require equipment aids to maintain their quality of life, there will be over 9Bn people aged 65+ by 2050.
Ageing is hard enough and when you need to rent accessibility equipment it’s even harder.
Addressing a a £186Bn market, LendoCare make it easy to rent the accessibility equipment you need for a holiday or at home.
🐠 Aquanzo, Stefanie Lobnig
Aquanzo are producing one of the best proteins available in the ocean on land without wasting finite resources.
As oceans can’t supply more marine ingredients to support the aquaculture growth, Aquanzo is developing technologies to farm marine zooplankton products 100% ocean free, using agriculture byproducts.
🌱 Albotherm, Molly Allington and Sian Fussell
Temperature regulation is one of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions with air conditioning alone accounting for 20% of electricity usage from buildings and 10% of total global electricity usage. Glass buildings in particular have problems with overheating as they trap solar radiation.
Albotherm are developing glass coatings that reversibly transition from transparent to white to reduce solar gain in hot weather, allowing buildings and greenhouses to regulate their own temperature without electrical input.
Even amidst all the D&I efforts we have seen from the fundraising world, the stats demonstrate that we still need to ramp up the support given to women working on the world’s most pressing issues. This continues to hold true for founders who’s underrepresented backgrounds also continue to serve as a barrier for growth and access.
