The Venture Accelerator
Handbook
Welcome to the Carbon13 Venture Accelerator. In this Handbook you can familiarise yourself with Phase 1 of the programme, understand the support that it is available to you, and the expectations Carbon13 has as you prepare to pitch for investment.
Your second key page is the Weekly Guide, where you can get a week-by-week breakdown of the sessions that will be running, what you need to prepare for each session, and what you should work on following them.
Key Dates
Document submission deadline - Thursday 25th June @09:00
You must deliver a complete Data Room to the IAC before pitching.
Your data room is a secure folder which holds all of the company information that investors will need to see in order to carry out due diligence on your company. You must be able to grant access to your data room to the Carbon13 IAC. You must use an online folder which Carbon13 are able to download in its entirety – please do not use Notion, as it is not possible to download this. From experience, most of our teams have found Google Drive easiest to use at this stage.
The Data Room Checklist will ensure that you have everything required for the submission.
investment pitches - 7th-9th July 2026
Investment Pitches will take place online. You will deliver a 10-12-minute pitch, followed by 30-minutes of questions from the Carbon13 IAC and subject experts. Pitches will take place online, on Zoom. We will schedule the your pitch slot roughly one month in advance.
Phase 1 Objectives
Operating Procedures
Communications
Our primary methods of communication with you will be through Slack and email. You will be able to contact the Programme Team, your EiR, and your cohort peers through Slack.
Session Invites
We will use Outlook to send calendar invites for all programme sessions. Please let jack@carbonthirteen.com know if you do not have an invite for the sessions detailed in the Weekly Guide.
Resources
The platform is where you can find the resources available to you through the Carbon13 programme. This includes the weekly guide, the Domain Experts Directory, All Things Carbon (to support in developing your Carbon Case), Founder Resources (on topics from fundraising, to product, to mental wellbeing), and offers from our partner network.
Weekly Check-in Form
Weekly Check-in
We ask you to fill out a weekly check-in form as a team, listing your wins and challenges from the week, your plans for the next week, and asks that you have of the Carbon13 team and the domain expert community. The form should not take more than 5-10 minutes to complete. Click on this link to reach the form.
We ask this to encourage you to reflect each week on the progress that you are making and to ensure that we always have an up-to-date understanding of how you are getting on as a team. If you have specific requests for support, please do include them here. We share your asks within Carbon13 and the domain expert community, so that they can engage with you as a cohort. Please be consistent and honest in filling this form out.
Want to have a quick chat about anything? Book time in with Jack whenever you need to.
Meet the team
Carbon13 is here to assist and guide you every step of the way. Our skilled team consists of seasoned founders, specialists in impact, innovation, fundrasing, finance, marketing, HR and more. We are dedicated to equipping you with the knowledge, advice, and resources essential for building your climate tech start up. You will engage with the team at different points, working 121 with senior leadership and the programme team across the whole of the programme.
The Programme Team
Hailey Sockalingam
Programme Officer
Jack Williams-Sharkey
Investment Analyst and Programme Manager
Marina Fontoura
Programme Manager
Mai Silk
Programme Lead
The programme team are on hand throughout your journey through the Venture Accelerator programme. If you have any questions do not hesitate to reach out to us.
Mentoring and Support
Use the slider to the roles of the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, Carbon Experts, and Domain Experts in Carbon13’s network.
Investment Pitches
Investment pitches will take place online (Zoom) on the 7th-9th of July. You will be given a specific pitch slot a few weeks in advance of this.
Your investment pitch will be attended by the Carbon13 Investment Advisory Committee (IAC) and selected external experts where required to properly assess your business (for example carbon experts).
You will have 12 minutes to pitch and will receive 30 minutes of questions from the IAC.
Uploading your Data Room:
Use the Data Room Checklist to ensure that you have everything required.
Email the link to your data room to jack@carbonthirteen.com and anneleen@carbonthirteen.com by the deadline of 09:00 on Thursday 25th June. Your data rooms will be downloaded to Carbon13’s servers after this deadline and any later updates will not be downloaded. If you have traction to share, such as LOIs, please email them to jack@carbonthirteen.com.
Your Pitch Deck
At the data room deadline, you should submit your extended pitch deck. This deck is designed to be read by an investor and contains the key information about your business which you want the investor to understand.
You will present a shorter version of this deck to the IAC during your pitch – this deck will be designed to be presented. You can continue to work on this presentation deck following the deadline and submit it the day before your pitch.
Decisions
Investment decisions are foreseen to be communicated in late July/August.