Last month, seven carefully-selected startups boarded a flight to Amsterdam. On a stage overlooking the Dutch capital, founders from Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Turkey pitched their innovative solutions for a greener future.
This event marked the culmination of four months of hard work within the Clim@ Scaler 2022 program, a four-month accelerator program led by the Green for Growth Fund (GGF) and implemented by Rockstart. The Clim@ Scaler program supports impact-focused ventures expanding their activities in GGF’s target regions, providing them with access to grant funding, personalized mentorship, interactive training, and critical resources for scaling their businesses. Although the program concluded with October’s final investor network event, startups retain access to post-program support via the GGF Technical Assistance Facility (TAF).
Selected from a pool of more than 100 ventures, startups chosen for this year’s Clim@ Scaler program included Effa, Fazlagida, Fusebox, Loggma, Plug’n’Grow, Tagaddod, and Wattnow. Three of these ventures– Fusebox, Loggma, and Wattnow– focus on emerging solutions for energy efficiency. Fusebox offers a trading platform for energy system balancing within the Baltic states while Loggma provides AI-based performance monitoring software for solar power plants. Wattnow also optimizes energy usage via their monitoring system for both industrial and residential use.
The remaining startups– Effa, Fazlagida, Plug’n’Grow, and Tagaddod– offer inventive and sustainable paths towards circularity. Effa creates 100% recyclable and renewable hygienic products to reduce global plastic pollution while Fazlagida evaluates food that doesn’t meet industry standards and coordinates its resale at a discounted price. Plug’n’Grow offers a selection of technology to combat food insecurity and water scarcity, and finally, Tagaddod provides a tech-enabled collection of waste oil and fats
Pitching to a crowd of investors and industry leaders, as well as a panel of domain-specific experts, the founders of these seven startups showcased their solutions for energy efficiency and circularity. Beyond presenting their sustainable solutions and funding needs, the founders also had the opportunity to network with investors and relevant voices in their field:
“It was great to see our mentors as well as some of the instructors and people that have contributed to the workshops and deep dives. The pitch experience was extremely well organized and very comfortable. The environment was very welcoming for networking.”
– Nour El-Assal, CEO, Tagaddod
“Clim@ Scaler has been really an amazing program for us and it was quite different from the other programs we enrolled in. It offered a lot of customized mentorship and it really helped with engaging our team throughout the process instead of just the co-founders. [….] They also really went out of their way to find the right investors for us.”
– Mostafa Hassanen, CEO, Plug’n’Grow
Additionally, this year’s Clim@ Scaler program had the opportunity to support these seven startups as they overcame barriers and reached significant milestones in their founder journey:
“We’re from Ukraine and we joined the program in June. At that time, we were still lost and didn’t know what to do with our business. During the program, we had such good mentorship and we were invested in by one of the biggest VCs in Silicon Valley. We know what to do next and we have another chance for survival.”
– Dasha Kichuk, CEO & Co-Founder, Effa
Clim@ Scaler 2022 saw a successful run thanks to grant funding and technical assistance from the GGF alongside personalized mentorship, partnerships, and from Rockstart’s international ecosystem.
“It was a privilege to have supported the journey of the selected ventures through the GGF Technical Assistance Facility’s Clim@ Scaler 2022 program. The ventures were truly impactful with their innovative energy efficiency and circular economy solutions, and we are proud to bring them closer to realizing their business expansion goals, all thanks to the great partnership with Rockstart, who worked tirelessly to make this program a reality.”
– Borislav Kostadinov, Director for Green for Growth Fund at the fund’s advisor, Finance in Motion
“Working with the first cohort of the Clim@ Scaler has been a great pleasure and is exactly in line with our mission to empower founders and drive positive change on a global scale. Together with GGF and Finance in Motion, we can utilize our expertise and network and find ways to support these impact ventures to scale. After this enriching event, we are very much looking forward to making our partnership stronger.”
– Zara Doyle Cunningham, Corporate Innovation Lead, Rockstart
If you want to learn more about the Clim@ Scaler program 2022, take a look at the website and follow the program on Twitter.
