Why we invested in Emitwise
In 2020, global disasters intensified by climate change produced USD 210 billion of losses, 26.5% more compared to 2019. This dramatically shows that the goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is critical both to our planet and the human civilization. The path to net zero however is narrow and requires an unprecedented transformation of how individuals and companies across the globe measure and minimize their carbon footprint.
Emitwise, the recently announced first investment by Lightbird, has designed a software solution that empowers companies to automatically measure, report and determine actions required to reduce their carbon footprint across their operations and supply chain. It integrates with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and lets its customers ingest raw data files across all emission categories (scope 1, 2 and 3). Coupled with data from Emitwise’s proprietary emission factor database, artificial intelligence algorithms analyze emissions in real time with precision and allows its customers to align with global climate targets.
Below you’ll find the reasons why we were so bullish on backing Mauro and his team at Emitwise.
Why we invested
🙋🏽Referred from a friend: A big thank you goes out to our dear friend Rodrigo Mallo who is an early angel investor in Emitwise and who introduced us to Mauro, co-founder & CEO of Emitwise in March. As we were already looking into the space for quite a while and had a strong conviction about its potential, we were immediately excited by the value proposition of Emitwise.
👥 A strong and complementary team: Already after our first meeting with Mauro, we were impressed by his deep understanding of the industry, his passion for the problem to be solved and his customer-centric thinking. What’s more, the Emitwise team consists of a strong mix of experts from the fields of Carbon Accounting and AI, driven to help firms realize the major economic upsides of this transformation.
🏢 The market is huge and growing: Emitwise is addressing a huge problem for companies as they face increasing pressure to decarbonize. This pressure not only comes from policymakers and regulators (such as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the European Green Deal), but also from changing purchasing preferences of consumers based on sustainability and investors committing to net-zero targets. Many forward-looking companies have grasped this shift and made net zero pledges, including Shell, Nestle, Daimler and more. 2020 was also the year where one announcement of a climate tech fund followed the other with Amazon (Climate Pledge Fund of USD 1bn), Microsoft (Climate Innovation Fund of USD 1bn) and Unilever (Climate & Nature Fund of EUR 1bn) leading the way. While the market is still in its infancy, we believe that this pressure will further increase over time and that there is momentum where Emitwise is well-positioned to gain relevant market share.
“There is no company whose business model won’t be profoundly affected by the transition to a net zero economy” (Larry Fink’s 2021 letter to CEOs).
💎 The product solves a big pain point: Carbon accounting and especially also measuring a company’s carbon footprint is the basis to put carbon reduction measures into place (“if you can’t measure it, you can’t change it”). Companies still face challenges in making their data available and transparent as well as in ensuring the satisfactory quality of such. Emitwise helps its customers to automate the collection, analysis, and reporting of carbon emissions for scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and to comply with auditing and disclosure systems like CDP, GHG and TCFD.
💚 Customers love what they’re getting: Since its launch in late 2020 Emitwise has gained significant traction in a variety of sectors such as ICT, Logistics, Construction, Financial Services, Manufacturing and more. From the customer feedback it became clear that there is increased pressure on the executive level and that most enterprises so far relied on specialized consulting firms which provide little help to continuously measure an organization’s footprint and to take data-driven decisions about critical actions needed.
“Emitwise saves us invaluable time in data collection, processing and analysis that we can now use to focus on minimizing our carbon footprint.” (Emitwise customer)
Onwards and upwards
We are very excited to be on the Emitwise journey alongside lead investor ArcTern Ventures, Saltwater, True Ventures, Social Impact Capital and Peter Harrison (read more on TechCrunch). We are looking forward to working closely with the Emitwise team as they expand their sales and marketing operations, deepen their product offering and significantly contribute to a world of net zero.
The team is hiring: find out more here.
