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Seed Round Memo

Overview

  • We’re raising $1,000,000 on a SAFE with a $10,000,000 post money cap.
  • We’re starting the fundraise on February 1, 2023.
  • We’re looking for angels or funds focused on climate tech and SaaS that write checks between $25,000 - $250,000.
  • To date we've raised $125k on a SAFE with a $10,000,000 post money cap to fund platform development.

Goals for the Seed Round

  • $1,000,000 ARR by December 31, 2023.
  • Build a predictable, repeatable, and scalable growth engine.
  • Stabilize the platform and professionalize the engineering workflow.

Team

  • Param Jaggi

    • Role: CEO
    • Focus: website, product design, infrastructure, brand, customer success, partnerships.
    • Background: Previously built carbon capture technology for motor vehicles. 2x Forbes 30 Under 30 Energy. Studied Mechanical Engineering & Economics at Vanderbilt University.

  • Parakh Jaggi

    • Role: CTO
    • Focus: full stack software, database, business intelligence tools, product docs.
    • Background: Full stack engineer with a focus on data and analytics. Currently Senior Associate Software Engineer at Capital One. Previously Senior Software Consultant at Pariveda Solutions (clients included Brinks Security and Toyota). Graduated with a degree of Computer Science from Baylor University.

  • Sofia Munana

    • Role: Sales
    • Focus: sales, marketing.
    • Background: Previously Director of Sales at Upmetrics and Account Executive at EverFi. Graduated with a degree with Psychology and Human Organizational Development from University of Miami.

About Climate Benefits

  • Climate Benefits is all-in-one climate change software for businesses. We help customers measure, offset, and report their carbon emissions— all while engaging their employees.
  • The product is built as a 3-sided marketplace: Employers, Employees, and Benefits providers. Benefits Providers are partners that are carbon removal providers, advocacy organizations, volunteering opportunities, or eco-friendly products & services.
  • Climate Benefits is positioned as an employee benefits program for companies. We provide employers with workflow tools to assign monthly stipends, customize the employee onboarding experience, track efficacy data, and more. From the employee perspective, they can view reports about their company’s climate impact and distribute their stipend to the Benefits Providers.
  • We started the company on January 7, 2021. Since then, we’ve built the most extensive platform on the market with a 3 person founding team. We’ve also onboarded 4 early customers which represents $40,000 ARR, processed $18,558 for our partners, and removed 50 tons of carbon from the atmosphere (via carbon credit purchases).

Vision

  • We want to build a generational company, both from a revenue and environmental perspective. In 5 years, we want to be at $100,000,000 in ARR and remove 100,000 tons of carbon (via carbon credit purchases).
  • From a product perspective, we want to build the full “climate stack” by building our SaaS solution with complimentary APIs and automation. This is reflected in our Seed Round roadmap.

Business Model

  • We currently charge customers $5 per employee per month. Based on early data, we believe this should change to a packaged model with a self-service tier for $149 / month and an enterprise tier with annual contracts ranging from $12,000 - $36,000 / year.
  • We also collect 10% of transactions that flow through the platform. These are monthly contributions that employees make to Benefits Providers.

Growth Plan

  • Product Led Growth (PLG): We’re thoughtfully building our platform to enable a bottoms-up sales motion. For example, making it really easy to sign up with self service, onboard team members, customize invitations to drive higher conversion rates, etc. By capturing the attention of 1 person at the organization, then we can use the PLG model to first deliver value and then capture value as a paid customer. Additionally, we’re building virality into the platform with external customizable reports that are shared with our customer’s shareholders. Features like this will drive down our CAC over time.
  • Outbound Sales: With the Seed Round, we’re going to build an outbound sales engine with full stack sales reps. Based on early feedback this is important, over a traditional SDR and AE approach, since enterprise clients are relying on the sales department to guide their climate change strategy internally. By building it full stack (from cold email to close), we can build this trust which will lead to a higher conversion rate.

Thesis

  • Every company, regardless of size or industry, will have a climate change or sustainability program.
  • Employee engagement is at the core of driving true change: both from an environmental and SaaS economics perspective. By implementing a program into the employee base, we reduce the churn rate and allow for natural account expansion as customers grow in size.
  • Software is becoming commoditized so, now more than ever, it’s important to be the most comprehensive solution. The combination of productization with thoughtful human support will win this market. Current products supplement their offering with services which leads to lower margins and higher operating expenses. We’re going to remain lean and productize the entire “climate stack”.