Watershed, the software platform that helps companies get to net-zero carbon fast, has announced its dual headquarters in London, as well as a new leader for the region, and new European investors and advisors.
“Europe is leading the world in the fight against climate change, setting ambitious targets and legislation across multiple policy areas, and binding emissions targets for key sectors of the economy,” said Taylor Francis, co-founder of Watershed. “We’re investing heavily in Europe to help businesses get the data, software, and support they need to accelerate decarbonisation efforts.”
Businesses are critical actors in the race to fight climate change, as their decisions on power, production, and supply chain have an everyday impact on how much carbon enters the atmosphere. But for many businesses, the key bottleneck to climate success is data. Too many companies produce glossy climate reports that provide little actionable data to work with.
Watershed helps companies design climate programs with concrete emissions reduction targets to reach net zero. Their software and data analytics platform is built by a world-class team of engineers and operators who previously helped develop data-driven products and climate programs at companies like Airbnb, Apple, Stripe, and Meta.
The product ingests unstructured data from millions of lines of invoices from across all business operations and enables collaboration with in-house teams and third-party suppliers to get real carbon figures, and then cut emissions. Watershed also offers a Marketplace of pre-vetted carbon removal partners who are actively developing technologies to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere right now.
Doubling down on Europe. Joining Watershed as Head of Europe is Ellen Moeller, who brings a passion for climate action and a decade of experience scaling technology businesses, including six years leading EMEA Partnerships and Operations at Stripe. Ellen will grow the European headcount to 30 employees by the end of 2022 and will triple that figure by the end of 2023, hiring across go-to-market, product, climate strategy, policy, and analytics.
“With 20% of revenue already coming to the region, we’re bringing ambitious plans to grow our presence in this critical market and partner with some of the most prominent thought leaders in the space,” says Moeller.
Watershed already partners with some of the biggest names in European tech, counting Monzo, Wise, Revolut, Kainos, and Hopin based in the UK as customers, as well as Spotify and Klarna, based in Sweden, and Dataiku, based in France. On the partnership with Watershed Shulin Chang, Sustainability Team at Klarna says: “Having a detailed breakdown of our emissions and being able to pinpoint where the largest sources are has helped: we now know what we need to do and who we need to work with.”
Watershed also recently brought on two strategic advisors who will support the expansion in Europe – Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, current UN Climate Envoy and founder of TCFD; and Christiana Figueres, architect of the landmark Paris Agreement as former Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC.
Speaking on the partnership, Mark Carney says: “The private sector is a critical lever in solving climate change, and European businesses will be instrumental to that effort. I’m delighted to work with Watershed as they invest deeply in the region and help European businesses get to net zero.”
“In addition, we have the backing of prominent European investors Aglaé Ventures (the investment firm backed by Agache, the holding company of the Arnault family and the controlling shareholder of LVMH), David Helgason, founder of Unity, as well as Stripe co-founders Patrick & John Collison. The company raised $70 million at a $1 billion valuation in its Series B funding round in 2022.”
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