Carbon Zero Capital and Highline Beta Launch the B2B Sustainability SaaS Venture Challenge

Together with Carbon Zero Capital, who partner with software entrepreneurs to accelerate growth in the sustainable economy, we’re launching the B2B Sustainability SaaS Venture Challenge.

Our goal is to recruit a founder (or a founding team) to collaborate with us to build and fund a new software startup, with a focus on B2B sustainability challenges. Specifically, we’re exploring the following opportunity areas:

• Compliance-driven use cases & data management to  leverage automation & AI to collect, analyze, verify data & report on sustainability metrics for mid-market 
  • A focus on companies doing business in multiple regulatory regions
• Helping asset managers navigate the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape & find new opportunities related to sustainability & ESG
• Helping private equity firms manage risk and grow valuations of their assets across the ownership cycle by improving sustainability and ESG performance 
• Solutions to support the growing number of climate change consultants entering the market

These are some examples of the opportunities we’ve researched in the market. 

But we’re open to your ideas as well! If you’re working on an early stage startup (or an idea) in a relevant area, please reach out. You may not be a fit for this specific venture challenge, but we’re still interested in connecting.

We’re interested in ideas related to:

• Compliance and regulatory issues
• The data challenges (need for more high quality, verifiable, integrated, real-time, public vs internal, etc.)
• Operational efficiencies (that can be measured), including improving workflows and reporting
• Support for corporate sustainability investments & strategic transformations
• Enabling and improving trust as it relates to measuring and reporting on ESG criteria
• Increasing education in the space to create capacity
• Integrating point-solutions into a platform for a target persona
• The ‘SG’ part of ESG (the ‘E’ is critical too, but we believe there’s more untapped potential in the ‘SG’)

For potential founders applying to the B2B Sustainability SaaS Venture Challenge, here’s what we’re looking for:

• An experienced founder (although we’re open to 1st time founders as well); ideally with previous experience building B2B software companies (targeting SMBs or enterprise)
• Passionate about sustainability and ESG (experience in these areas is a plus)
• Experience in compliance or regulatory spaces is a bonus

If selected, you will join Highline Beta’s venture studio program as a Founder-in-Residence so that we can work together to validate the right opportunity. If we do build a startup together, you will be the CEO/founder (with a significant equity stake), and Highline Beta’s Venture Studio will provide 3-6 months of hands-on support (with building the MVP, going to market, recruiting a team, and raising additional capital) and invest. Carbon Zero Capital will be alongside us providing domain expertise & capital as well.

To learn more and apply for the FiR role, please click here.