Scaling Climate Tech Florian Fontaine-Papion

Nicolas Guinebretière is the co-founder of Vestack, a startup reinventing the construction industry with low-carbon materials and offsite manufacturing. By using timber frames manufactured away from the construction site, Vestack can be cost-competitive with traditional cement-based buildings while cutting the building's carbon footprint by up to 3. This is a game changer in an industry representing 25% of global emissions.
Launched in 2018, Vestack has already delivered over 15 buildings and is rapidly scaling up with another 30 projects under construction. In this episode, we talk with Nicolas about:
His experience transitioning from McKinsey to building housesHow to start a construction startup from scratchThe climate impact of the construction industry and available low-carbon materialsHow off-site manufacturing is the key to making low-carbon materials competitiveHow to rapidly scale up an asset-heavy manufacturing business
Enjoy the discussion!

Evan Hynes is the CEO and co-founder of ClimateBase, the leading job platform for climate. Launched in 2020, ClimateBase has scaled incredibly fast with over 250,000 monthly users, over 100,000 subscribers to its climate newsletter, and more than 7,000 participants to the ClimateTech week it recently organized in San Francisco.
And all of this growth with only 7 full-time employees and ~$300K in angel investor funding.
In this episode, we talk with Evan about:
His early experiences in community-building as an undergrad at UC Barbara and then at a YC Combinator startup offering software engineering bootcamps.The origin story behind ClimateBase stemming from Evan's personal challenges with finding relevant climate jobs and building network in the climate space.The climate job gap and how to successfully transition into a climate career.The importance of timing in startup launches and the power of viral word-of-mouth to grow ClimateBase to 250K users without any paid advertising.
Enjoy the discussion!

Raphael Declercq is the CEO of PowerFlex, a 300 people strong company based in San Diego, California with the mission to help businesses transition to distributed renewables and electrified transportation.
Launched as a subsidiary of EDF - the French energy giant operating over 30+ nuclear power plants - PowerFlex has quickly become the 2nd largest installer of rooftop solar for commercial buildings and the 4th largest EV installer in the US.
With $100M raised last year, PowerFlex aims to accelerate the transition of commercial customers to clean energy and to continue to invest in its unique technology integrating on-site solar generation with intelligent EV charging.
In this episode, we talk with Raphael about:
How to create a startup within a giant organizationWhat it will take to cover every commercial rooftop with solar panelsWhat is the impact of EV charging on the stability of the electrical gridHow the PowerFlex tech platform can optimize commercial energy assetsWhat are Virtual Power Plants and how could they play a critical role in a renewables-dominated grid
Enjoy the discussion!

Olivier Reinaud is Co-Founder & Managing Director at NetZero, a startup bringing carbon removal at scale in the tropics with biochar.
Launched in 2021 with a diverse founding team, including the climatologist Jean Jouzel (IPCC vice chair), NetZero has rapidly demonstrated its technology in Cameroon and Brazil and has been selected in the prestigious Musk Foundation’s X Prize for Carbon Removal.
With $12M raised recently to scale up operations, Net Zero aims to remove 2 million tons of CO2 with biochar by 2030 with a mutually beneficial partnership between all biochar stakeholders:
Agricultural cooperatives get to valorize cumbersome biomass residues into biocharFarmers get that biochar to improve yields and minimize fertilizer useFood companies finance biochar production to reduce their supply chain carbon emissions
In this episode, we talk with Olivier about:
how is grandfather ventured into biochar when climate change was still doubted or ignored by mostthe key role of carbon credits in achieving a net zero worldhow biochar is produced, how does it capture carbon from plants, and what are the benefits for farmersNet Zero licensing model and how it will enable this startup to rapidly grow from 2 facilities to hundreds of biochar facilities
Enjoy the discussion!

Sebastian Berning is the co-founder & CEO of Instagrid, a startup aiming to replace combustion generators used for mobile power supply by clean portable batteries.
These generators are used every time power supply is needed without an easy access to the grid: in food carts to cook, on construction sites to run jackhammers, at festivals for lighting & sound, and in countless other applications.
While not getting much attention from regulators to date, these generators do pose massive health and climate problem by releasing huge quantities of air particulates, typically in dense urban areas, and producing significant CO2 emissions (1h run time of a generator is equivalent to driving 250km with a car)
In this episode, we talk with Sebastian about:
Instagrid's ideation from his experience in Silicon Valley innovation labs to building a battery factory in Germanyhow are batteries built and how Instagrid has fully redesigned the battery management systemhow to sell a complex industrial product before building anything the challenge of scaling up a business with a long tail of small customers
Enjoy the discussion!
To learn more about Instagrid and clean mobile power:
Clean Air Project: EU-funded study assessing generators climate emissions (~ 30m, ~ 20 pages)Instagrid use cases visualized

Alexis Normand is the Co-founder & CEO of Greenly, a carbon accounting and management platform enabling companies to measure and reduce their emissions
Carbon accounting has grown from a niche practice only a few years ago to a widely adopted business practice with 18,700 public companies now disclosing their emissions
By measuring their emissions, companies can then define climate targets with ~2,200 companies having set a net zero science-based target to date, a number that has grown exponentially over the last years
Yet, much remains to be done with 17,000 public companies still failing to disclose their emissions and - while science-based target set a high bar for climate ambition - greenwashing and dubious climate claims remain rampant in the corporate world
Launched less than 4 years ago in Paris, Greenly aims to democratize carbon measurement to enable companies of all size to measure their impact and take climate action. Greenly has already convinced 1,000 customers across Europe and the US, from one-person shops to large companies such as banking giant BNP Paribas.
In this episode, we talk with Alexis about:
how Alexis' interest in technology and tracking health data brought him to carbon accountinghow can we measure carbon emissions from company’s datawhich climate commitments can corporates take and what is the difference between carbon neutrality and net zero science-based targetshow can Greenly software platform scale to companies of all sizes globally and become a standard like any financial accounting system but for carbon
Enjoy the show!
To learn more about carbon accounting and emission reduction:
The Net-Zero standard for Corporates (report, ~65 pages)Energy: A beginner’s guide, Vaclav Smil (book)How to avoid a climate disaster, Bill Gates (book)Speed & Scale, an action plan for solving our climate crisis, John Doer (book)Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming, Paul Hawken (book)World without end, Jean-Marc Jancovici (comics)