Sustainability data without hassle
PhD student Kamal Hakimzadeh wants to make it easier for companies to manage their sustainability data. Together with sustainability expert Maria Svantemark, he has founded SustainLab, with the vision that accelerated sustainability work leads to both successful companies and a better planet. Now they are raising capital to continue their growth.
2022 brings new legal requirements and EU regulations for transparency and comparability of sustainability data. This places new demands on both society and industry, but many companies lack the skills required to meet the new requirements. This is what SustainLab wants to solve. They automate the collection, processing, analysis and visualization of sustainability data and provide recommendations for how companies can improve their sustainability work.
- Our business concept is based on automating the time-consuming and manual work of collecting and refining sustainability data, says Maria Svantemark, CEO and co-founder of SustainLab. In this way, companies have the opportunity to consider sustainability aspects in all critical business decisions, a development that is absolutely necessary today.
Secured investment
Founders Maria Svantemark and Kamal Hakimzadeh contacted KTH Innovation in June 2020. Together with their business development coach Lykke Westgren, they began to develop a first version of the platform and examine the interest from the market. Today, less than two years later, they have a number of paying customers and are securing investment to enable growth.
- As an impact company, we constantly ask ourselves how we can scale up our impact even more. We are recruiting more talented developers and colleagues to help us make a real difference. We are particularly pleased that investors are looking at sustainability in the same way as SustainLab and that they are entering with a long-term scope, Maria Svantemark continues.
Met through KTH Innovation program
A number of business angels with long experience in the SaaS area join the emission, as well as Smarkit Invest, a contact that was mediated through the Bicky Chakraborty Entrepreneur Program, a program run by KTH Innovation. The program, that supports companies that can contribute to Sweden's growth, was started in 2016 after a donation of SEK 5 million from Bicky Chakraborty, founder of Elite Hotels.
- It was incredibly valuable for us to get support from KTH Innovation and our fantastic coach Lykke. At an early stage, it meant a lot to get support and advice, but also to be pushed to take in new approaches, find shortcuts and gain a greater understanding of all the parts that entrepreneurship contains. It gave us a better product and a better company in the end."