Climate Tech Co-founder

About Carbon13

All great stories start somewhere. Yours could start with an application. Carbon13 is seeking individuals ready to dedicate the next several years to building a climate tech startup that reshapes the baseline scenarios dragging us deeper into the climate crisis. There's no time for false starts. Join our programme, find your ideal co-founder in just 8 weeks, define your problem space, and tap into the expertise of 400+ domain specialists, carbon experts, and sharp-eyed entrepreneurs in residence.

Show that your team is ready to transform entire industries and secure Carbon13's initial investment in just 5 months. Carbon13 builds and backs ventures addressing Earth’s critical life support systems, with a laser focus on founders solving for the climate, and the climate only. We ask every new founder to aim big, building solutions with the potential to reduce carbon dioxide (or equivalent greenhouse gases) by 10 million tonnes per year – and all our support is designed to help you reach that figure.

“I’ve always loved the hustle of entrepreneurship. Climate tech entrepreneurship is the icing on the cake. It’s doing what I love to make the world a better place for everyone else. For climate tech to have maximum impact, it needs a diversity of founders who represent all set to benefit from it.” – Sioned Owen, Founder and Chief Product Officer at Unbound Energy.

Why Participate?

• We provide a shortcut to meet numerous great science professionals to be tech co-founders with whom you can create extraordinary climate tech solutions. Climate doesn't have time for false starts; begin your entrepreneurship journey the right way with us, avoiding dead ends or incremental impacts.
• We train you in deep carbon knowledge that will enable you to build your startup in a way that climate tech VCs will need to invest.

“One of the unique things that we are doing at Carbon13 is we are not expecting our founders to outsource this knowledge, we are very much training all of our founders, so they have access to the latest tools and techniques, so that they can assess their carbon mitigation potential, understand how to communicate it and of course be transparent in how they are measuring it.” – Carbon13 Co-Founder and Chief Sustainability Officer Dr. Nicky Dee.

Flexible Programme Framework

Apart from nine in-person days in London/Cambridge, you can do the programme from anywhere in the world. The rest of the programme is delivered remotely. It is very important to us to make clear that you can also be a successful climate tech founder if you have children, care for elderly relatives, do voluntary work, or have other obligations. We can't tackle the climate crisis if we don't involve multiple life circumstances on the entrepreneurial path. Our Venture Builder is designed on that principle.

“There was people from all over the place. All different walks of life, ages, backgrounds and I think this was one of the great things that Carbon13 was able to bring together for me.” – Natalia Dorfman, CEO and co-founder of KITA.

Sector Agnostic Approach

From Food to Construction to Energy to New Materials to Carbon Capture, Carbon13 is sector agnostic, so founders can explore ideas in any emitting industry. We tailor our support accordingly for science-based, deep tech, or hardware ventures – whether it's support on go-to-market strategy, IP protection, fundraising, or team building, you'll be accessing a brain trust of hundreds of experts, peers, and partners.

More than 90 ventures launched through the programme, and 46 ventures received our pre-seed investment, a total of £5 million since 2021. More than two-thirds of these have already secured follow-on funding. Our ventures are working on technologies with great emission-saving potential, such as carbon negative concrete, methane capture, bioplastics, precision fermentation, quantum computing for materials discovery, green ammonia, green hydrogen, biochar, or direct air capture.

How Carbon13 Works

On Carbon13, you are building a climate tech startup as part of a cohort of 80 founders. Our programme is designed to amplify your work, because the planet doesn't have time to waste on theory or incremental ideas. The programme is divided into three phases:

Phase 1: Teaming & Ideation

• You will meet many inspiring people and finally decide on one or more co-founders to form a team. It is up to you whether you put the idea or the personal connection first.

Phase 2: Validation

• Together with our Domain Experts and your personal Entrepreneur in Residence, your team will intensely work on: Team strengthening, Carbon intelligence, Rapid iterations of concepts, Business model forming, Prototype testing, Intellectual property, Customer development, Stakeholder development, Behaviour change, Governance, and Venture incorporation.
• At the end of the second phase, we invest in a selection of the teams that convinced us the most with their concept. With these teams, we enter the third phase. Don't worry, if your team doesn't make it, your entrepreneurial journey doesn't end and neither does our support.

Phase 3: Acceleration

• Your team will use phase 3 to focus on market, product, business model, and strategy to prepare the venture for further seed-stage investment.
• We also help you look at scaling strategies, managing growth pains, and developing a funding strategy. We guarantee you many conversations with relevant (impact) investors from our network who can't wait to get to know your venture.

Carbon13 in Numbers

• £14 million investment across 101 ventures since 2021.
• £40 million – Carbon13 companies have gone on to raise up-rounds totalling more than £40 million.
• 500 million tonnes – Carbon13’s portfolio is collectively working towards a decarbonisation potential at scale of 500 million tonnes per year.
• +10% of the Carbon13 portfolio is Earthshot nominated, including Kita, Samudra Oceans, Forge Minerals, and Nium.
• 40% of our participants hold a PhD.
• 90% of each cohort forms a co-founding team within Phase 1.
• +500 domain experts, carbon experts, entrepreneurs in residence.

Key skills/competency

• Entrepreneurship
• Climate Technology
• Venture Building
• Strategic Planning
• Carbon Mitigation
• Business Development
• Team Leadership
• Innovation
• Fundraising
• Problem Solving