We believe entrepreneurs will change the trajectory of climate change.

The Venture Builder for the Climate Emergency

Image Bluemethane‘s first-of-its kind technology detects and captures methane emissions from water sources to create a new source of bio-power

We build ventures capable of mitigating at least 10M tonnes of CO2e per annum once at scale

The Venture Builder for the Climate Emergency

Image Dr. Nicky Dee, Carbon13 Co-Founder and Chief Sustainability Officer

“With the help of Carbon13, we’re able to quantify our carbon footprint and carbon impact.”

The Venture Builder for the Climate Emergency

Image Gabriele Barteskaite, CPO and Co-founder at Future Greens, is decarbonising our food system by growing fresh produce using food waste.

Carbon13 selects, supports and invests in determined people through our venture building programmes, focused specifically on building scalable climate ventures that will reduce and remove emissions on a global scale.

Determined People

The climate crisis needs determined founders committed to this challenge, including scientists, engineers, and serial entrepreneurs. The average age of our cohorts is 37, and a quarter hold PhDs.

CARBON AT OUR CORE

Every startup we build has the potential to reduce or remove CO₂e emissions by net 10 million tonnes per year when at scale.

OUR MISSION IS CLIMATE

Our community is rooted in our mission to fight the climate emergency, and driven by our scalability ethos. This is where climate tech startups will succeed on a global scale.

FROM CAMBRIDGE TO BERLIN

Our Cambridge origins have taught us the importance of commercial, carbon and scientific understanding. Our growth to Berlin fuels our ecosystem of domain expertise, investors, and partners.

OUR APPROACH TO CARBON STARTS WITH PEOPLE

Million tonnes (net) of CO2e – the potential annual mitigation of each Carbon13 venture

Number of invested ventures built through our programmes since 2021

Number of founders developed through our programmes

Number of Domain Experts working with our ventures and Carbon13

Our Mission

We will select and support thousands of entrepreneurs to build ventures with the potential to mitigate over 400 million tonnes of CO2e per annum by 2040. We have set this target because humanity has just a few years to reduce our emissions and slow the pace of global warming, and the innovation delivered by entrepreneurs can play a significant role within this fight.

We simply don’t have time for founders to waste on dead ends or incremental solutions, or to build companies which don’t make a true impact on emissions. The future is Net Zero. Our startups are already building it.

listen to our podcast

Welcome to Carbon13’s podcast “Climate Takes” where we ask special guests for their “takes” on their industry and climate challenge, as well as setting a call to action, asking what will it take to solve the climate emergency?

Our Programmes

Whether you’re already a founder or ready to become one, explore our programmes to see how we’ll work with you to innovate on solutions for the climate emergency.

Venture Builder Cambridge

An eight-month programme for a cohort of 80 determined individuals from the UK and beyond, who don’t have a startup yet but want to find a co-founder and build a climate-tech startup.

Venture Builder Berlin

For founders resident in the EU, our Berlin Venture Builder combines the entrepreneurial and academic spirit of Cambridge with the DACH climate tech scene.

Venture Launchpad

The Venture Launchpad is a fully remote startup accelerator where teams work on their Carbon Case, their growth strategies, and their investment readiness for pre-seed and beyond.

News, raises & milestones

Learn more about Carbon13’s progress and community. Here we share fundraising news from our ventures, collaborations with our partners, and our own news, opinion, and milestones.

Carbon13 and Techspace announce partnership

Carbon13 and Techspace announce partnership

We are thrilled to announce Techspace as Carbon13’s Official Workspace Partner, providing our founders with access to collaborative and flexible workspaces in London and Berlin.

Spotlight on our Alumni Sarah Montgomery from Infyos

Spotlight on our Alumni Sarah Montgomery from Infyos

Sarah Montgomery, co-founder and CEO of Infyos, is featured in Carbon13’s alumni spotlight. Infyos aims to enhance the sustainability of electric vehicle (EV) batteries by assisting manufacturers in mapping and measuring their supply chain impacts. This initiative helps identify areas for improvement and promotes more sustainable practices within the EV industry.

Bluemethane receives a £419k grant

Bluemethane receives a £419k grant

Bluemethane has been awarded this grant as part of the Innovate UK and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’s funding for innovative projects aimed at monitoring environmental change.

Spotlight on our Alumni Ben Wilding from Sun Bear Biofuture

Spotlight on our Alumni Ben Wilding from Sun Bear Biofuture

I’m Ben Wilding CEO and co-founder of Sun Bear Biofuture. I’ve spent the last 15 years founding and growing my own businesses, mostly in technology. When covid struck I decided I needed a change and took 2020 to volunteer for 2 charities in horticulture and agriculture. Being surrounded by people talking about biodiversity lose, climate change and sustainability was eye opening and a lightbulb moment for me – I knew I had to work on climate impact. So I signed up to a masters in sustainability and behaviour change and then joined Carbon 13 in April 2022. And I haven’t looked back!

Spotlight on our Domain Expert Isabelle Bart

Spotlight on our Domain Expert Isabelle Bart

Would you briefly introduce yourself and highlight what kind of expertise and support the teams can expect from you? I am the founder of Impact Innovator and am passionate about creating innovative and impactful enterprises to solve the world’s greatest challenges. I...

Our Upcoming Events & Webinars

Whether investor, partner or participant. We show you how Carbon13 is organised and look forward to your questions and ideas. Our regular webinars and in-person events offer a great opportunity to get to know us better.

Here is what our founders say

"As a scientist on the Venture Builder, yes it was great to join a group which also had lots of other scientists and engineers, but I was also taken out of my comfort zone and challenged by amazing entrepreneurs and commercial founders. That's what took it from an idea to a business."

Yubiao Niu
Co-founder and CTO, Nium
from Cohort 3

“One of the great things about Carbon13 was meeting people from all walks of life, ages and backgrounds.”

Natalia Dorfman
Co-founder and CEO, Kita
from Cohort 2

“I still consider myself to be an engineer and not an entrepreneur. It was never really my plan to move into entrepreneurship but I do believe that it is the best vehicle that humans have developed in order to actually take ideas to accelerate them, make them grow and actually have a profound effect on the world.”

Jonathan Bean
Co-founder and CEO, Materials Nexus
from Cohort 2

"It would have taken me years to meet 50 exceptionally talented and passionate founders who are determined to solve the climate crisis and Carbon13 did it in just a few weeks"

Sarah Montgomery
Co-founder and CEO
at Infyos from cohort 1

Carbon13's participants are uber qualified. I was blown away by the people in the room when I stepped in there. And they actually want to do a startup. Often the biggest challenge is getting someone great to leave a really comfortable job.

Lucy Lyons
Co-founder and CEO
at Kestrix from cohort 4

Kita

Natalia Dorfman, CEO
Thomas Merriman, CPO
Paul Young, CTO

Kita is the carbon insurance specialist; developing bespoke carbon insurance products that safeguard the quality and performance of carbon transactions. By reducing risk, carbon insurance channels investment towards high quality carbon projects, enabling them to scale at the pace needed to address the climate crisis.

Materials Nexus

Dr Jonathan Bean, CEO
Robert Forrest, CTO
Dr Jon Pillow, CSO
Nic Stirk MBE, CCO

Materials Nexus is a deep-tech company originated at Cambridge University and Carbon13, who combine the insights of quantum mechanics with the power of AI to predict the properties of materials. Materials such as concrete, steel and glass contribute towards 50% of all CO₂ emissions. New, better materials are needed for a new, low carbon world – but it typically takes 20 years to develop a new material to be commercialised.

Their ground-breaking AI-enabled Materials Discovery Platform transforms the way new materials are designed using a rapid automated process and advanced quantum calculations that give high accuracy at larger scales.

 

Nium logo

 

Phil Hunter, COO
Lewis Jenkins, CEO
Yubiao Niu, CTO

 

Nium eliminates emissions by delivering hydrogen as a more efficient energy vector. Their novel nanotechnology revolutionises the Haber-Bosch process and enables the synthesis of truly green ammonia. With two patents filed, Nium helps build the infrastructure and network for a cleaner future of food and fuel.

 

 

Louise Parlons Bentata, CEO
Néstor Rueda-Vallejo, CTO

3 billion tonnes of CO2e are emitted from methane in water each year. There is no way to remove this methane at scale. Until now. Bluemethane measures and removes methane from water. The methane is then used as a new source of clean energy. Their technology is scalable and can be deployed in a variety of settings, including wastewater treatment plants, reservoirs and rice cultivation. With methane’s global warming power 34x that of carbon, Bluemethane is tackling a core problem for global warming.

Infyos

 

Sarah Montgomery,  CEO
Tony To, Co-Founder, CTO

Infyos are building a future where every electric vehicle battery is sustainable. Using the team’s expertise in the battery industry and supply chain technology for large organisations around the world, Infyos are helping car makers, battery manufacturers and mining companies map and measure the impact of their supply chain, identify hotspots, and enable collaborative action to improve impact and reduce supply chain risk.