Climate isn’t “over.” But building in climate has entered a new chapter, defined by shifting regulation, politicized narratives, buyer confusion, and a market that funded dozens of overlapping platforms.
In this episode, Andreas and co-host Carmel Rafaeli, Founding Partner at The Table, sit down with Lubomila Jordanova, Co-founder & CEO of Plan A, just weeks after Plan Ajoined forces with Diginex, the NASDAQ-listed sustainability technology company, at the end of 2025.
The conversation is part of Leaders Shaping a Resilient Planet, a series spotlighting exceptional founders in climate tech who happen to be women. The focus is not identity as a theme, but execution as a discipline. These are operators building in some of the most complex and capital-intensive parts of the real economy.
This is not an acquisition recap. It is a clear-eyed discussion about what it takes to build and responsibly exit a climate tech company in a market that is maturing quickly.
What’s covered:
* 00:52 The Table: co-investing community + the Foundation’s recoverable grants model
* 02:05 Introducing Lubomila Jordanova and Plan A
* 02:45 The acquisition: why Plan A chose to lead consolidation
* 04:35 Fundraising logic → acquisition logic: what changed
* 06:40 Founder outcome vs VC outcome: how alignment works in an exit
* 11:30 “The truth is where the real economy sits”: what carbon software actually sells
* 13:30 The uncomfortable line: “glorified consulting with a digital angle”
* 15:05 What VC portfolios get wrong in climate: return distribution, capital stack, secondaries
* 16:55 Why “climate” can’t be one bucket: hardware vs SaaS vs reporting
* 20:00 Managing investor perception: visibility, bias, and boardroom baggage
* 23:15 The broader financial pyramid: VC vs public markets vs real-economy signals
* 27:35 Post-exit reality: why a public-company KPI lens changes the conversation
* 31:10 Three founder learnings (humility, ecosystem, real-world problems)
* 33:55 A rare founder truth: pregnancy during the exit + building with “more hats than one”
🎧 Listen on Apple or Spotify, with chapters ready to explore, and stay tuned for future episodes of Leaders Shaping a Resilient Planet as we continue conversations with the builders shaping a more resilient world.
Show Notes
Choosing Structure Over Momentum
Lubomila describes the decision to join forces with Diginex as strategic rather than reactive. The first wave of climate software produced fragmentation across carbon accounting and ESG tooling. Regulation evolved unevenly across markets. Enterprise buyers demanded deeper integration and longer-term commitments. Cap tables became more crowded as companies layered in new rounds of capital.
Eventually, the core question shifts. It is no longer simply whether another round can be raised, but whether the existing structure is the right one for long-term growth and mission durability.
That shift from fundraising logic to structural logic is central to the conversation. With more than 20 shareholders and growing operational complexity, Plan A had to balance investor expectations with the realities of scaling inside global enterprises. The tension many founders quietly navigate becomes explicit here: an exit does not only have to satisfy venture return narratives. It has to serve the company, the team, customers, and the next chapter of execution.
In climate, consolidation is not necessarily a retreat. Often, it is a sign of category maturity.
The Measurement Gap
A defining thread of the discussion is how climate companies are evaluated.
Carbon accounting and decarbonization platforms are frequently judged through a pure SaaS lens. Yet these businesses sit inside supply chains, logistics systems, procurement processes, and multi-year transformation roadmaps. They influence packaging decisions, supplier relationships, and capital allocation across enterprises. Their impact reaches into the operational core of the companies they serve.
When standard SaaS templates are applied to real-economy transformation, nuance gets lost. Gross margin expectations, sales cycle assumptions, and scaling models can drift away from the structural realities of the domain.
Lubomila argues that climate cannot be treated as a single venture bucket. Hardware companies, ESG reporting platforms, carbon removal infrastructure, workflow software, and deep industrial decarbonization businesses each operate under different economic and technical constraints. They require different capital stacks, time horizons, and definitions of success. Portfolio construction often fails to reflect that diversity, which in turn shapes misaligned expectations downstream.
Capital Shapes What Gets Built
Carmel broadens the discussion by outlining what The Table is building: a global co-investing community backing women-led climate ventures from pre-Seed to Series A, alongside a Foundation that deploys recoverable grants as catalytic capital.
The premise is straightforward. Capital structures influence behavior. If funding mechanisms are not designed for the realities of climate businesses, friction will surface later in the form of strained governance, unrealistic timelines, or forced strategic pivots.
Climate innovation does not only require capital. It requires capital that understands regulatory cycles, enterprise adoption curves, and system-level complexity.
Perception and Narrative Cycles
The episode also explores the human side of scaling.
Visibility can be misinterpreted. Board members bring expectations shaped by other companies and other cycles. Venture capital operates within a broader financial ecosystem where public markets, private equity, and macroeconomic signals ultimately shape what is perceived as durable or bankable.
Narratives can shift quickly. The real economy does not.
Founders operate at the intersection of those shifting narratives and slower-moving operational realities. Navigating that tension is part of the job.
Founder Realities
The conversation closes with grounded reflections rather than celebratory headlines.
Humility matters in a market where someone will always be better funded or better connected. Ecosystem matters more than ego, particularly in a sector that depends on collaboration across supply chains and institutions. And the real economy contains more opportunity than venture mythology sometimes acknowledges. Building something consequential does not require speculative moonshots. It requires disciplined execution on meaningful problems.
In a moment rarely discussed so plainly, Lubomila also shares that she was pregnant during the exit and welcomed her baby seven months ago. The point is not performative. It is a reminder that founders often carry multiple roles simultaneously and that sustainable performance depends on support systems rather than personal mythology.
Why This Series Exists
Leaders Shaping a Resilient Planet exists to spotlight a particular kind of founder: those rebuilding parts of the real economy with discipline, technical depth, and long-term conviction. These are not symbolic leaders or trend-driven stories, but operators working through regulatory complexity, enterprise sales cycles, capital constraints, and system-level change.
Lubomila Jordanova is one of those founders.
Building Plan A required more than vision. It meant navigating evolving regulation, earning enterprise trust, maintaining technical rigor, managing a complex shareholder base, and operating under public scrutiny. The decision to join forces with Diginex marks an important milestone for the company, but it also reflects something broader about where climate tech is headed.
The sector is entering a new phase defined by consolidation, sharper capital discipline, deeper integration into enterprise systems, and more realistic expectations about how value is created. The hype cycle is receding, and in its place is a more grounded era of execution.
Climate tech needs founders who understand both mission and mechanics, who can translate urgency into durable systems and real-world outcomes. Lubomila is one of them.
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