- Taylor Francis established a start of data due to carbon in 2019.
- The beginning said it raised $ 100m in a round of series C funding in 2024 with a $ 1.8b rating.
- He shared how he raised his climate -focused start for investors during Trump’s first term.
As a Watershed collaborator, a start of tracking emission data, Taylor Francis’ task is to persuade companies to spend money on lowering their carbon-Madje trail even in a political landscape that may be hostile to climate initiatives.
Francis co-founded the start of software in 2019 with two former Stripes colleagues, Avi Itskovich and Christian Anderson, at the end of the Trump’s first administration, which aggressively traversed climate-oriented stimuli and regulations.
At that time, the pitch of their investors was simple: there is money to be done in climate action.
Six years later, with the beginning of a second time of Trump, Francis told Business Insider that the message remains the same.
“We’ve been here before,” he said.
In February 2024, the beginning announced a round of Cr $ 100 million series funding with a $ 1.8 billion rating. And January 2025 was “the best month ever Waitershed as a business” about new income, Francis said. He did not discover a picture.
Today, Francis said his biggest competitors are Salesforce and Microsoft who also provide similar emission tracking services. He said his clients include 60 of Fortune 500 companies.
“I feel like this is a problem we’ve won our way lately,” he said.
Business Insider visited Francis at the 23,000 -square -foot office of Watershed in the Soma neighborhood of San Francisco, where nearly 400 employees are encouraged to get into work.
He told the bi that he likes to operate in a “old school” way: personally, where people can freely exchange ideas in front of a white table.
Francis shared how he first opened his company to investors in 2019 and the challenges he sails today.
The interview was condensed and edited for clarity.
Was it difficult to get company on board with watershed in 2019?
Yes, I want to say, 2019 was in Trump’s first administration.
It seemed that no one had done this before – making companies spend money on the climate software. People had spent money on consultants, they would spend money on [carbon] competencies. And I think the mega trend we are riding and trying to accelerate is that the climate is becoming more and more in money for companies.
This was the field at the time – there is money in the tracking of climate initiatives.
Honestly, the first slide of our sales deck was the same in 2019 as it is today. Literally the first slide of the sales deck. It looks better, it is redesigned, but it still says: “Software to measure, reduce and report your carbon emissions because climate action is good for your business.”
Here is the thing, I will say January 2025 was our best month as a business.
What do you think is happening there?
I think we are indexed for the companies that do the climate work, not indexed to companies that speak publicly about their climate work.
We see now that the companies are behind the scenes. When you are a software of enterprises, you get some kind to see the inside of the organizations and if they are thinking about it in a thoughtful way.
Companies are going for this with more organizational seriousness now than three years ago. They are saying much less about it, but the executive leader who is responsible has been moved from the main sustainability officer to the main financial officer.
Water Office in San Francisco, California. Lloyd Lee
Who are your competitors?
Microsoft and Salesforce. They have these modules. The beautiful validation of the market that they think is a great option, but there is only a change in product quality when it is the only thing you do.
A spokesman for Salesforce told Business Insider in an email that managing sustainability is “fundamentally a data challenge” that requires a unified platform. A Microsoft spokesman did not respond to a comment request.
What is the hardest thing now?
Honestly, I think it’s pretty pedestrian: the challenges of the company’s software.
How do you make it an intelligent for companies to buy a beautiful piece of software than a module from someone they have already bought?
How do you manage a growing team between San Francisco and London? Two years ago, the catchment was one hundred people, now there are 380 people.
How do you make sure you are doing well for Walmart scale companies that have great expectations for this kind of thing?
How many clients do you have now?
I don’t know we have shared it publicly, but now we have more than 500 customers than the 5 customers we had when John Doserr [the Chair of Kleiner Perkins] Joined us in 2021.
What was your reaction when Blackrock – a $ 11.6 -trillion management -in -management client – withdrew from the net management initiative of zero?
We work with a very wide group of the financial sector and I will say that they are doing the job more seriously today than when we started working with them.
And so I think there is only this thing of the action report, where a gang of companies about the Glasgow Climate Conference came up with major press releases with great bold claims and had not understood the data yet.
Today, you see the attraction of promises and companies – behind the scenes – you know what they are doing. They have taken the initiatives they are prior to. So I think the conversation-action report has declined.
Is it a good time for climate action in the world now? No. Of course, the pendulum of politics matters and the policy pendulum is not shaking in the right direction. But – behind scenes with company – I think people are doing more, even though they are talking less.