Key Insights for Climate & Impact Startups: Strategies to Connect with Markets and Investors
Why Startups Should Focus More on their Customers, Market, and Target Audience
Welcome back to Changemakers, the official newsletter of Brighter Future.
Thank you to everyone for being members of this community and for joining us for each edition of the newsletter, which includes insights on brand storytelling, conversations with industry investors and founders, and deep dives into different aspects of impact-driven business.
This week, we’re sharing insights from climate-focused investors, unveiling our latest services, and announcing the latest Brighter Future event.
Check out this week’s topics…
Perfect Your Pitch Event with Climate and Impact Investors
Unveiling the Brighter Future Range of Services
Investor Spotlight with Carlota Ochoa Neven Du Mont
Mastering Monthly Investor Updates (Template)
The Top Reason Startups Fail (+ Guiding Framework)
A Conversation with Steffen Gerlach at Impact Festival
Perfect Your Pitch: Live Panel with Brighter Future
Do you know any climate or impact startups looking for expert feedback? This may be the critical opportunity they need to elevate their organisation.
Next month, we’re hosting a free, online Pitch Review Session on Monday, December 9, 2024, from 6:00 to 7:30 pm GMT with top experts, including Helena Wasserman from Unstoppable and Investors for Climate, Romain Diaz from Satgana, Robert Hokin from Greenbackers Investment Capital, and our founder, Aaron Leaman.
If you want to pitch, please submit your deck to mission@brighterfuture.studio, where we will be selecting a few applicants, with the rest being chosen live during the session. These limited number of pitches will be reviewed live, with others receiving feedback post-event in the Brighter Future community.
Feel free to share the link below with any startups that may be interested and could benefit from expert pitching advice.
Introducing the Brighter Future Full Range of Services—Built for Your Growth
We’re excited to unveil our new range of services, which make it simple and transparent to engage with impactful solutions tailored to your stage of scaling and growth.
Whether you’re just starting or striving for new heights, these services are designed to deliver results. Clink any of the bolded titles below for the link to the services page on the Brighter Future website.
Our Live Services Include:
Design & Content Subscriptions: High-quality designs and content on demand—newsletters, landing pages, and more, delivered fast to keep your brand ahead.
Storytelling Packages: Authentic narratives to connect with your audience, perfect for showcasing your origin, purpose, and vision.
Brand Building Packages: Comprehensive solutions combining strategy, storytelling, and design to amplify your market presence.
Website Design: Tailored Webflow websites—from sleek landing pages to advanced multi-page designs.
Landing Pages: High-converting pages designed to boost leads and conversions.
Pitch Decks: Investor-ready decks crafted to captivate and secure funding in just 14 days.
Know Someone Who Needs Support?
Refer a friend to Brighter Future Studio and earn a 10% commission on their first project. Join us and let’s start your journey today.
Knowing Your Audience and Market with Carlota Ochoa Neven Du Mont
Carlota Ochoa Neven Du Mont is a member of the Extantia Capital team, and has an expertise in European energy markets with a focus on high-impact climate solutions to the investment market.
Her investment strategy is driven by the pressing need to address climate change, focusing on companies with the potential to significantly reduce or avoid gigaton-level carbon emissions.
In our recent conversation, Neven Du Mont shared a few key investment insights from her work with startups. To read more of her story and hear more advice from her experiences, check out her investor spotlight below.
What are the key qualities that you look for in a startup and its founders?
“Breakthrough tech isn’t everything. You can have the most amazing technology, but you still need a team that can deliver, commercialise and execute on that. I think it’s easy to get blinded by dazzling tech, so it’s really important—especially since a lot of climate tech comes out of academia and founders tend to be more technical—for founding teams to look at themselves and their skill set. If there isn’t someone on the team with commercial experience, or someone who’s done this before or comes from a more generalist background, they need to bring someone onto the team who can provide that. It will make a huge difference.
The other thing is, and this goes hand in hand with the first point; companies need to think not only about de-risking their technology but also developing a commercial pipeline in parallel. They need to understand who their customers are and show that there’s traction. This traction doesn’t necessarily have to come as booked revenues, because that happens after de-risking the technology to a certain extent. It’s about showing that there’s traction and not just focusing on developing the technology.”
What advice would you give to startups that are seeking investment in the current market?
“I think it’s about telling a compelling story. You need to show that you can get your product to cost parity in the long run, or ideally, undercut prices. Show clearly where legislation is a tailwind and how you're going to utilise that. And don't forget about the commercials—if you can show early traction with customers, even though your tech might not be fully there yet, you've got a leg up on everyone else.
One more practical piece of advice: if you're a climate tech company raising from climate tech investors, don't spend too much time on the problem. I often see pitch decks that spend five slides talking about how big of an issue climate change or plastic pollution is. If you're raising funds from climate tech investors, we already know what the problem is—that’s why we raised the fund. You’ll lose my attention within the first five minutes. Know who your audience is.”
Mastering Monthly Investor Updates (Template)
Monthly updates are a significant part of the investment process in the impact and climate space. These check-ins let your investors know you are on the right track, foster trust in your organisation, keep your mission at the centre of your work, and help make tangible progress toward impact goals.
Knowing how to engage with investors in these updates can sometimes be tedious and tricky. There are a lot of different data points and key indicators they need to assess the progress of your startup, and the more you are able to supply this data, the better the relationship will be between yourself and the investors.
Check out the easy-to-use template below that covers the essential information investors need in these updates, from financial snapshots to impact metrics and progress highlights.
One of the Top Reasons Startups Fail (+ Guiding Framework)
“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.”
– Seth Godin, Entrepreneur & Best-Selling Author
In the current impact landscape, an inspiring amount of startups are rising to the challenge of creating innovative solutions to the world’s pressing climate issues. Yet many face hurdles beyond passion or innovation and struggle to survive.
Through many candid conversations with founders, we’ve found that one of the biggest reasons many startups fail is due to a lack of product-market fit. A recent CB Insights report highlighted this struggle, finding that 35% of startups fail due to a lack of market need. That’s why aligning mission-driven products with concrete market needs is essential to sustained startup growth.
To combat this issue, we’ve developed a framework that includes three stages for climate startups to test, refine, and focus their offerings. This process allows startups to combat this critical issue and ensure their product is meeting the markets needs.
Startup Advice at Impact Festival with Steffen Gerlach of Eeden
During the Impact Festival last month, our own Kate Rushton interviewed Steffen Gerlach of eeden, about their experience as Impact Award winners and our storytelling collaboration with their organisation.
During the interview, Steffen shared some great advice for startups in the impact space who are sharing their story and seeking investment.
“I see many impact startups out there who tell their impact story, which is great, but you need to approach your customers as well,” says Gerlach. “The impact should be a big part of your story and your sales pitch, but you should also know what is the business interest of your customer.”
You can watch the rest of the interview and the announcement of this year’s Impact Award winner in the video above.
Thanks for joining us this week. We’ll be back with the next edition of Changemakers on December 5th. See you soon.
Cheers,
The Brighter Future Team
