Time to cool the planet — Creandum’s perspective on Climate Tech

According to Dealroom, from 2013–2019 $60 bn of early-stage capital was invested globally into startups tackling the climate challenge. In 2019 investments amounted to $16 bn. This equated to approx. 6% of total VC capital invested that year (and was up from $418 million in 2013).

A number of tech players have emerged to assist businesses in taking what we call “carbon action”. We clustered these actions into 1) creating awareness and transparency and 2) taking action.

Several of the big players have announced recently that they are turning carbon neutral, including Google, Facebook, and BCG. The most audacious strategies even provide a way to turn climate positive (i.e. removing more CO₂ than they emit).

The most critical step: Reducing emissions. We believe the best way to make progress toward a decarbonized world is to stop putting CO₂ in the atmosphere in the first place.

While we have learned that in B2B there is often still an element of heavy lifting (i.e. consulting) involved in the early days, we believe that many of the ongoing monitoring efforts can and will be automated through software.

Sooner rather than later, regulation will force nations and corporations to introduce and abide by net-zero strategies. Tools to help them accomplish these goals in an efficient, scalable and reliable manner will be highly sought-after.

Leveraging network effects. Carbon emissions can be traced along the entire supply chain, across Scopes 1, 2 and 3. We believe this is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to tap into strong network effects, as soon as companies invite (or require) their suppliers and business partners to provide the same level of transparency on their carbon footprint... See more

B2B over B2C (for now) to reach impact at scale. We strongly believe in the mounting pressures from regulators, investors and individuals that require companies globally and across industries to adopt net-zero strategies. While many consumers welcome B2C solutions, we believe there’s even more urgency to act and impact to be had in this emerging an... See more