Climaider has just closed a minor seed round on 2 million DKK. Hear our thoughts about the future.
Climaider consists of eight climate warriors in their mid-twenties behind, who have just closed a minor seed-round. CMO & Co-founder Victor Bergholt talks about the future growth of Climaider.
What is the idea behind Climaider?
Climaider is about making it easier for the average person to live more climate-friendly. Our app is built around different challenges, where the user can calculate their climate footprint and then get help to reduce it as much as possible. In the app, you can, for example, switch to a greener electricity company, unsubscribe from your paper advertisements or sign climate-related citizen proposals. A kind of Duolingo for climate action.
Climaider was started because we were ignored by the lacking opportunities to take personal responsibility and fight the climate crisis. The most optimal would be if everyone stopped flying and stopped eating beef tomorrow, but realistically it will probably not happen for the time being.
We all have limited energy in our everyday lives to make climate-friendly choices, and therefore we want people to spend their energy on the initiatives where you get the most climate for the money. For what is most useful: Biking to work instead of driving or eating less beef? We believe that it will have to be easier to make those choices. For how can it be that we have apps for sending pictures, meditating and running, but not one for the probably biggest challenge: Living climate-friendly?
Who are your customers?
We have only marketed the app for a few months, and we currently have approx. 15,000 downloads made up of users of all ages. However, various external studies and internal tests have shown that it is especially the young people who are most climate-conscious, and therefore it is also primarily those we try to address.
Currently, we have also helped over 50 companies with CO2 calculations, aid for reduction and climate compensation. We have collaborated with everything from private hospitals to travel agencies, and include names such as Zetland, Tuborgfondet, Copenhagen Fashion Week and the insurance app UNDO.
You have received about 2 million. DKK in investment - what is that for?
Our main focus for the next while will be to optimize the app so that we get our users to complete as many challenges as possible at all. The more challenges that are completed, the greater the climate action, which is the whole mission of Climaider.
In addition, we are in full swing with the marketing of the app, where we are investing heavily in paid advertising on social media. This requires money for the production of ads and the purchase of advertising space at the various media. So it becomes a mixture of optimizing the product and paid advertising.
What is your biggest challenge?
Our biggest challenge is that we offer a relatively simple tool for an extremely complex problem. However, as we see it, this is also our strength, as that is precisely the whole point: In such a complicated area, there is a need for solutions that can engage the ordinary Dane. We therefore work hard with our communication. Whether it is Facebook ads or texts in the app, we need to communicate a great deal of credibility to our target audience.
What growth do you expect in the coming years?
Our goal at Climaider is to combat the climate crisis as much as possible, which requires us to become a global company. The rest of the year will be spent getting as far out as possible in Denmark and testing the product in individual countries. 2022 will be about Nordic expansion, for which we will probably have to go out and find more money.
You are a startup, when do you expect to make money?
We expect to push the growth button hard in the next few years, so break-even is probably not around the corner. However, we do not expect to dig the hole too deep, so we are betting that it will be before 2025.
Who are the investors?
The new investors consist of a syndicate consisting of Nicolaj Højer Nielsen, Allan Sønderskov Darre, Christina Yding Hahn Elgaard, Morten Stahl, Morten Apuschkin Lund Petersen, Jeppe Schytte-Hansen, Ole Fich, Lars Fejer, Morten Breum Keller, Mikkel Ploug, Frederik Paul Siesbye Halsted.
