Cofounder of a climatech startup - scientist/engineer

Cofounder of a climatech startup - Scientist/Engineer 

We're looking for scientists, engineers and inventors to become co-founders of startups that fight climate change.  

If you want to use your skills to reduce emissions by millions of tonnes, then Carbon13 is currently the strongest launchpad for you to build a scalable decarbonisation or carbon capture venture from scratch – one which is both investment ready and high impact.  

Through this eight-month Venture Builder, we've made pre-seed investments in 32 teams in the last 18 months with another 14 to come in winter 2023. Deeptech, hardtech and science-based ventures launched through the programme include carbon negative concrete, methane capture, bioplastics, composite recycling, alternative protein, materials, and green ammonia. You can view our portfolio of ventures at www.carbonthirteen.com/our-portfolio  

Each venture we invest in must have the potential to reduce CO2e emissions by 10 million tonnes a year. The planet doesn’t have time for anything less. 

Working on IP or a climatetech idea already?  

Unlike accelerators, you do NOT need an idea to join Carbon13’s Venture Builder, though many scientist and engineer founders often come to us because they’re working on IP and are seeking to bring it to market through a venture capital route.  

The VC funding route is currently the faster and often surer route for launching complex projects with a high decarbonisation impact, which is why Carbon13 has been designed to give your venture the best possible entry point into this route. Our support is tailored to science-based startups with the ambition to reduce CO2e emissions by 10 million tonnes per year.  

Science-based founders use our programme to  

• Find a complementary, committed commercial cofounder capable of executing a high growth startup 
• Move their concepts past TRL3-5 and into commercial operation 
• Understand the highest impact opportunity for their IP or idea 
• Develop the appropriate funding strategy  

If you do not have an idea, you will either be supported to find an idea to develop which can significantly reduce emissions, or join a cofounder/team with strong insights into an emitting industry and together execute the implementation of their validated customer pain points.  

Each Venture Builder cohort is made up of 70+ founders drawn from every emitting sector, who include serial entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, industry leaders, sustainability experts and innovators, who form cofounding teams to build ventures that can reduce emissions by 10 million tonnes of CO2e a year.  
 

How does Carbon13 work?  

On Carbon13 you are building a startup as part of a cohort of 70 founders. You are not sat in a room being told what you already know. Our programme is designed to amplify the work you're doing, because the planet doesn't have time to waste on theory or incremental ideas.  

-Phase 1: Teaming & Ideation in 6 weeks  

You will find a cofounder in the first 6 weeks. As a technical founder you most likely will team up with a founder with a proven track record in founding startups or industry leadership in emitting sectors. On average 90% of the 70 founders on the cohort form teams within 6 weeks.  
 

-Phase 2: Validation in 9 weeks  

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 | Venture incorporation  

-Phase 3: Acceleration in 4 months  

After Phase 2, we invest pre-seed into 14 ventures. They then 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.  

Applications are open now for our next two cohorts: 

• Berlin Cohort 1 starts 21st February 2023 
• Cambridge Cohort 5 starts 14th March 2023 

Apart from nine in-person days in Berlin or Cambridge, you can do the programme from anywhere in the world. The rest of the programme is delivered remotely. 
 

Learn More  

We are running a series of webinars available to everyone who would like to learn more about Carbon13 and how to build startups with breakthrough solutions for the climate. Our next one for scientists and engineers can be found here - https://carbonthirteen.com/webinars/ 

Carbon13 in numbers: 

- £3.5 million investment across 32 ventures since 2021 

- 65% have already raised further funding 

- 50% of the ventures are software, 50% science or hardware based 

- 70 potential cofounders on every cohort 

- 35 technical, 35 commercial cofounders 

- 90% of each cohort forms a cofounding team within 6 weeks 

- 100s of domain experts, carbon experts, entrepreneurs in residence 

- 10 million tonnes of emissions every year. We only launch startups that have the potential to reduce emissions by 10 million tonnes. 

We caused climate change. Let's fix it.