June 21, 2023: Full speed ahead on climate action

What is Carbonhound?
Carbonhound is a fast-growing, easy-to-use platform that reduces the technical and fiscal barriers for small/medium-sized businesses to take climate action.

We have helped more than 85 organizations reduce and measure their environmental impact, saving 50-85% compared to a traditional consultant-led approach. Together, backed by the latest international standards, our clients are taking decisive action against climate change.

What is the insight/reason that you launched this business?

Existing climate tools were built for experts and large companies. There were no affordable solutions for carbon that could empower small and medium businesses to do their part to fight climate change with credibility. It was worrying that 50% of the economy (small businesses) were not being served and enabled with the best climate expertise to take advantage of the shift to a low-carbon economy.

How did you get started?

After spending five years in the UK, I (co-founder and CEO Sanders Lazier) knew that I wanted to build a business in Canada around sustainability. Initially, I planned to create a green REIT that would purchase and decarbonize buildings. However, looking at a list of 42 vendors I realized none of them were able to help me create a credible sustainable business model. At that moment, I knew there had to be an easier way.

How did you find your co-founder?

I met my brilliant co-founder Kyri Vanguard through an online co-founder matching site. We spent six months getting to know each other during the pandemic before deciding to join forces and build Carbonhound.

How did you get your first customer?

We received our first customer through personal networks. But we arrived late! They had just wrapped up a five-month evaluation process and signed a three-year agreement with another vendor. However, we knew the solution wasn't designed for their needs and kept pushing. And after six months of continuing the conversation, we finally managed to close them.

What is the long-term vision?

We want to be the operating system for SMEs to profitably and credibly take action on climate change, guiding SMEs on every step of their journey.

Interesting metrics (number of customers, growth in the last year, etc)

We have over 85 customers on the platform and we are growing quickly.

Who are your customers and how do you help them?

We work with businesses from 5-500 employees to empower them with the data to attract new investors, meet reporting requests from net zero committed customers or businesses that are looking to attract and retain mission-driven talent. If you are funded by a VC, chances are they will be asking for your climate credentials as their LPs push for increased visibility, we can help!

What is your biggest victory? What setback(s) did you overcome?

That first contract was definitely the most difficult. The company had a very strong reputation in the environmental community so getting them on board was important. But since they had just signed a long-term agreement, continuing the conversation was challenging.

What’s more, the program manager left as soon as the startup had gained some traction - forcing them to go back to square one. We knew that the contract was going to play a crucial role as a proof point in the fundraising success, which is why they kept at it and rebuilt that foundation of trust - leading to an agreement months later.

What piece of advice would you like to pass on to other Founders?

Defining value propositions: Gains are not enough to push through the inertia of “business as usual”. Focus on the pains instead to drive momentum with your product. Spend the time and really make sure you have this nailed down before moving forward.

What are the highlights of working at your company?

Easy, the people. Carbonhound has such an incredible group of talented and passionate teammates that make work feel effortless and fun.

Anything else you would like to highlight about your company?

We are excited to attend Collision this year and welcome visitors to our booth if you want to talk shop or learn more about how you can be a more sustainable business.

Learn more about Carbonhound and the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator: Toronto here.

What is the news?

EvenUp, a Canadian-founded legal tech company, announced a $50.5m USD raise led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, SingalFire, NFX, and DCM and valuing the company at $325m USD.

What does EvenUp do?

EvenUp enables personal injury law firms to automate the workflow for demand letters, using generative AI and a proprietary legal dataset.

What is notable about this deal?

This is a vertical SAAS deal focused on the legal industry. This makes it two hot legal deals in a month for an industry that is notoriously slow at adopting and spending money on tech.

So why has EvenUp been able to crack the legal space?

This is an example of how AI can transform an industry. EvenUp used the data in the industry to deliver clear value to lawyers. Using the data to train an AI, EvenUp has been able to help personal injury lawyers better understand the value of their cases and increase payouts by 30% while saving clients time in drafting their legal claims.

The ROI for lawyers is too high for them to ignore it.

Why doesn't Cohere do this?

EvenUp has access to a unique data set to train its data and the more cases it helps analyze and get feedback on the more unique data it creates. Furthermore, they have also built a workflow that works for the legal industry. Both of these are hard for a horizontal player to copy.

What else is interesting about the company?

The three founders are Canadian and they have built a distributed company with no office. This is an example of a distributed company working.

What is the takeaway for the community?

Tech changes happen rarely but when they do you have to check your assumptions. Legal was considered a bad place to build a startup but now due to the data available and the technology it is a fast-moving space.

Customer ROI is the best way to get traction and build companies that create value.

While there is a big push to go back to the office, companies that started around the pandemic that was distributed first may continue to thrive and never go back to the office.

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A raise we’re talking about this week

This company just raised over $30m. How did they do it?

Are you still concerned about the estate planning process? Do not fear.

Enterprise Account Executive - Financial Services Industry, Qualtrics XM (Toronto, ON)

Why is this cool? The Qualtrics XM Platform™ is a system of action that helps businesses to attract customers who stay longer and buy more, engage and empower employees to do the best work of their lives, develop breakthrough products people love, and to build a brand people can’t imagine living without. In this role, you will drive company revenue growth through net new customer acquisition and expansion in our current customer base.

Senior/Staff Front-end Engineer, ClickUp (Canada)

Why is this cool? ClickUp is the world's only all-in-one productivity platform that flexes to the way people want to work. It replaces all individual workplace productivity tools with a single, unified platform including project management, document collaboration, spreadsheets, chat, goals, and more. In this role, you will be responsible for setting the overall vision for our front-end application and enforcing standards around front-end software development.

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• TechTO x OneEleven present: The Summer Social Series | June 26, 2023: A chance to kick off summer with hundreds of founders, technologists, and like-minded individuals (over yummy food and drinks!) Kick-off Collision Week with us at the ultimate summer party!

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