May 30, 2024
With support from Lemonade Stand, EstBAN, Startup Wise Guys, Little Green Fund and notable angels, Esgrid secures €500,000 to build accessible value chain sustainability management tools, noting enterprise and financial sector clients among its customer base.
Esgrid, a Tallinn-based startup, has completed its €500,000 funding round. This funding will accelerate the company’s mission to make value chain sustainability management accessible and easy. The pre-seed round investment was made by Lemonade Stand, EstBAN, Startup Wise Guys and Little Green Fun with notable participation from key former employees of Pipedrive and Wise, including Alvar Lumberg, Kairi Pauskar, and the founders of Klaus, Kair Käsper and Martin Kõiva.
Siim Teller, the managing partner at Lemonade Stand, explained the investment reasons: “To reach our climate goals, we need data that helps direct money to sustainable companies. The Esgrid team not only has a great vision for building the right tools and systems for this purpose, but they also move fast. They landed their first customer before writing any code, building the product alongside them. They’ve nailed solving a big pain point for their customers.”
The company helps medium-sized enterprises and financial institutions manage their value chain sustainability effectively and affordably. The problem that Esgrid is addressing is that only a small part of credit and procurement decisions consider the sustainability of SMEs which comprise 60% of enterprise and financial sector value chains. The tools for managing the environmental, social and governance impact effectively are either missing or cost between 50,000€ to 100,000€ per year. Esgrid promises to reduce the annual cost by 10 times. In support of this cause, Esgrid has developed AI-assisted functions for supporting users in providing and analysing ESG data.
“Our vision is a world where sustainability management is a natural part of daily business at companies of any size. By creating an easy way to understand and improve the sustainability of small and medium-sized companies in value chains, we help the market direct more capital towards sustainable business practices and contribute to solving critical environmental and social issues,” said Oksana Tolmatšova, CEO of Esgrid.
Esgrid entered the Lithuanian market in May, signing Fjord Bank as its first customer. Kristina Simonovič, the Chief Risk Officer at Fjord Bank, commented on the collaboration: “We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Esgrid, which will provide us with a state-of-the-art tool for conducting comprehensive ESG assessments of our partners. By leveraging Esgrid's tool, we can benchmark our partners against other market players. For our partners, this tool is a game-changer. Not only can they evaluate their ESG performance, but they will also be able to compare their standing with industry peers after the appropriate data is gathered, facilitating continuous improvement and competitive positioning.”
Founded in 2023, Esgrid launched publicly in December and won a €150,000 syndicate investment award from EstBAN at sTARTUp Day in January 2024. The company’s four founders, Oksana Tolmatšova, Katrin Isotamm, Ott Ilves, and Jevgeni Bogatõrjov, bring extensive experience from companies like Swedbank, Telia, Katana, and Pipedrive. To date, Esgrid has signed enterprise customers such as Ibis Hotel, Nordic Milk and Utilitas and financial sector companies like Specialist VC and Fjord Bank. Over 100 companies are now providing ESG data on the platform.
About Esgrid
Esgrid provides value chain sustainability management solutions for medium-sized enterprises and financial institutions. The company’s innovative platform helps businesses assess, manage, and improve their value chain sustainability impact, ensuring compliance with ESG standards. Founded in 2023, Esgrid is committed to making sustainability accessible for all businesses.