About us
As a fully remote company and program we are a distributed team in Germany and Sweden with additional supporters spread across Europe.
Founding Partner Markus Sudhoff works closely with the startup founders. He co-founded three companies in the areas of software, hardware and fintech, invested in AI and software start-ups as angel investor and mentored more than 40 Startups as Mentor in Residence at Founders Foundation. With the goal to build the world's most entrepreneurial climate initiative he founded Climate Founders in 2020, already worked with 200+ teams in various fields like hardware, biotech, nature based solutions, marketplaces or software in the Climate Founders Pre-Acceleration Sprint and helped the 14 portfolio companies to raise their first funding and to enter the market successfully.
Lin Gong-Deutschmann joined Climate Founders in 2024 as Partner. Based in Stockholm she works closely with our portfolio companies and heavily supports in their fundraising and strategic decisions. She co-founded companies in e-commerce, education and AI and hold VP and MD positions in global companies. In the recent years she invested in 20+ startups as an angel investor and was awarded as Europe's Female Angel Investor of the Year 2022 (by BAND) and as one of Sweden's most important business angels (by Breakit). She additionally supported founders as mentor in programs such as OnDeck, TechFounders, Respond, FashionForGood or SSE Business Lab.
Based in Berlin our Associate Franziska Ponick manages the dealflow and application process and is responsible for operational topics and supports in due diligence. Before she started at Climate Founders in 2022 she helped to build the curriculum and knowledgebase of REACH, the startup incubator of University of Muenster and later gathered a lot of experience in sales in the VC-backed startup Edyoucated.
Supporters
Jochen Berger
Impact Investor @ CF Equity
"Sound business plans and positive contributions to the community and the environment should not be mutually exclusive."