Case study · Icarus · My own venture

Carbon markets are not broken.

The data underneath them is. Icarus is my bet on fixing it from the bottom of the supply chain up.

The real problem

Most of a large company's emissions sit in its supply chain — thousands of small businesses that have never been asked for carbon data, and couldn't easily produce it if they were. So the numbers at the top get estimated, averaged and guessed. Every market, report and target built on them inherits the guess.

Carbon software went after the enterprise. The gap is everyone underneath it.

The bet

Give every small business a free carbon profile, built in about five minutes from the systems they already use. Invite their suppliers in, so the data gets better as the network grows. Price it so nobody has to think twice. Then help them act on it, with reduction plans and greener alternatives in one place.

How it came together

1. Day 2Met my CTO and co-founder on the second day of a venture capital incubator programme, bringing carbon accounting and commercial knowledge to his product and engineering.
2. Week 3A working beta, demoed to global banks, an airline, a construction group and a technology manufacturer.
3. Weeks 4–83,500 target businesses identified, a full business plan, unit economics and a map of more than 47 competitors.
4. NowAn operator runs Icarus day to day and is taking it through its first customer pilots. My co-founder and I sit as directors and shareholders.

The honest bit

Investors told us climate software was saturated, and that money would chase AI for the next few years. We listened. Then we chose to build lean, without them, around the businesses that actually need this — because the problem doesn't go away when the funding cycle moves on.

Why it matters to you

I don't only advise on zero to one. I've done it with my own name and money on the line: finding a co-founder, shipping in weeks, getting in front of enterprise buyers, and making the hard calls about capital. When you're at that stage, I'll know what it feels like.

Fix the data, and the market starts to work.