Planting the seeds for a better future

Today, alongside our public launch of Sweep, ​we’re announcing that we’ve raised a US$5m seed-funding round.

We only have this decade left to keep global warming in check. And we’re dedicating all our energy, time, experience and network to have the biggest impact, as quickly as possible.

We built Sweep for large organisations with extensive value chains and plenty of leverage to effect change. And we’re putting a focus on collaboration across scope 3, where most of a company’s emission reduction potential lies.

It’s with all this in mind that we’ve carefully picked our funding partners to help us grow smartly and quickly.

Pia d'Iribarne, head of New Wave

Pia co-founded New Wave, a European early-stage venture capital firm, with successful entrepreneurs and investors such as Xavier Niel (billionaire founder of French telecoms giant), and high-profile LPs including Peter Fenton (Benchmark), and Tony Fadell (Nest and Apple). Pia, formerly at Accel and Stride, brings expertise in quickly scaling B2B software globally.

Marie Ekeland, founder of 2050 Marie is a successful venture investor in France and the US. Her new fund is out to prove that venture capital can shape an economy in the best interests of society and our planet. 2050 is the first management company to be 100% owned by a perpetual purpose trust. And 10% of its strategic investments are reserved for common assets.

Dr Jeannette Zu Fürstenberg, founder of La Famiglia La Famiglia is a Berlin-based VC that invests in early-stage tech companies across Europe and the US. As she is descended from a German industrial family, it was important for Jeannette to connect the dots and shape the future. That’s why La Famiglia is backed by industry leaders from the old and new economy. You’ll have noticed that we’ve partnered with three women, which currently makes our board 100% female-led.

We have our roots in Europe but the climate crisis is global. We’re already propagating seeds in other centres of international climate action, which is why we’ve also invited San Francisco-based angel investors to help shape our path across the pond.

Among them:

Adrian McDermott has been leading the product and engineering teams for Zendesk since 2010 and is currently Zendesk’s Chief Technology Officer. He serves on the Bay Area advisory boards of numerous companies and nonprofits. Adrian's ability to grow SaaS B2B companies from scratch to IPO, while also driving corporate social responsibility, is a big inspiration for us.

Nicolas Dessaigne is the co-founder and former CEO of Algolia, a search-as-a-service platform that runs more than 80 billion search queries a month for companies such as Stripe and LVMH. Nicolas is now a full-time visiting partner at Y Combinator, where he brings his expertise to new generations of tech entrepreneurs. Nicolas actively supports women and diverse entrepreneur networks.

To all of you, we are really grateful for your support. Together we’re planting the seed for a really fruitful future for all of us.