About Marble
Marble is a climate tech venture studio. Our north star is to erase billions of tons from annual greenhouse gas emissions and create a thriving future.
We partner with scientists, engineers and operators to create deeptech companies that can solve hard climate problems, and reshape multi-billion $ industries.
Together, we co-create radical solutions that slash emissions in hard-to-abate sectors, remove carbon from the atmosphere, and cool the planet. We shape the most promising ideas into new companies, funded by Marble.
We're proud to be backed by leading climate investors across Europe and the US.
Hard Climate Problem: Methane Emissions
Methane is a very special greenhouse gas. It remains only 10 years in the atmosphere, but its warming impact is 85x as high as CO2, on a 20 year time scale. Overall, methane accounts for a third of the rise in global temperatures since the industrial revolution.
Rapid methane abatement is the biggest opportunity to mitigate near-term warming. It also limits the triggering of climate feedback loops and tipping points, which would compromise global efforts for long-term climate stabilisation.
There is no time to lose: atmospheric methane levels are currently growing at record rate, due to soaring emissions and weaker methane sinks.
We are exploring several approaches to slash methane emissions across a variety of sources, both biogenic (agriculture, wetlands, waste) and energy related.
Potential opportunities:
- Point source oxidation: using heat, light, electrons or biology to break the C-H bond in areas where methane is found in higher concentrations (between 10ppm and 1%). Different use cases in agriculture, waste and energy infrastructure should be carefully considered to identify the most sensible deployment approach.
- Enteric methane: Ruminants release methane during a digestive process known as enteric fermentation. A methanogen vaccine would be the holy grail, but microbiome and diet alterations could also be considered. High effectiveness, cost and scalability across different geographies will be essential.
- Rice cultivation: can we prevent methane emissions from rice paddies while increasing yields at the same time? We’re considering a range of approaches, including alternative farming techniques, improved rice cultivars, and microbiome solutions.
- Water infrastructure: water utilities and wastewater treatment plants are responsible for about 2% of GHG emissions across CO2, CH4 and N2O. Could modern bioprocesses and electrochemistry mitigate these while recovering resources from wastewater? The ideal solution needs to account for the global disparity of water infrastructure.
- Other areas we’re considering:
- Wetlands: we’re not sure yet if this is a startup idea, but we’d love to hear about creative solutions to abate wetland methane emissions!
- Waste: solutions for landfill and manure that can scale across geographies
- Energy: finding and plugging methane leaks in oil, gas and coal infrastructure.
- Computational methods to improve any of the above
We are actively looking for new Founders in Residence to join us, either:
- As First Founders to scope entirely new approaches
- As Co-Founders for projects in development within Marble
Ideal Background(s)
If you are a mission-driven individual with deep expertise in one of the areas below, or any adjacent field, we would love to hear from you!
- Materials science, physical chemistry, with experience in either thermal catalysis, photocatalysis, or electrocatalysis for CH4 or CO2 conversion. Applied experience in the design and optimisation of materials and reactors is a plus!
- OR Microbiologist, microbiome specialist, or related, experienced in (meta)genomics, immunology, bioinformatics, strain selection, ideally in agriculture or pharma. Prior experience working with methanogens is a plus!
- OR Synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, molecular biology, with experience in pathway engineering, design of genetic circuits, flux balance analysis, etc.
- OR Environmental engineering or related, ideally with experience in wastewater treatment, or in the biogenic methane cycle in wetlands and agriculture
- OR Chemical engineering with direct experience in designing complex hardware systems for biotech applications, with a multidisciplinary approach and a builder mindset
Nice to have: depending on the approach, experience in the agriculture, energy or pharma sector would be a plus, as well as basics of atmospheric chemistry, chemical engineering, techno economic modelling, and life cycle assessment
Who We Are Looking For
We encourage you to apply even if you feel you don’t meet all requirements. We know that some skills can be learned while you are building.
We value intelligence, creativity and Founder Potential:
- You dream of founding your own company and building a stellar team.
- You are a pragmatic optimist with a driving motivation to mitigate climate change.
- You know how to communicate about deeply technical subjects in a way that speaks to non-technical individuals to spark their interest
- You are self-motivated, outcome-focused, and action-oriented. You enjoy working on multiple project areas with an interdisciplinary team, in a fast-paced environment.
- You are naturally inquisitive and curious, able to quickly grasp key concepts, and go deep enough to surface non-obvious insights.
- You approach radically new ideas with an open mind. You get to the salient questions quickly, and your first instinct is to ask how they scale.
- You understand that innovation starts with people. You enjoy building collaborations within a team and with external partners.
What We Offer
As a Founder-in-Residence, you’ll be joining like-minded individuals who also believe in the need for deeptech solutions to fight climate change.
- For First Founder opportunities, you would be scoping entirely new approaches together with us, before we go on to find your future co-founders.
- For Co-Founder opportunities, you would be partnering with a Founder in Residence who has already been developing a great idea within Marble. You will have the opportunity to meet her/him before making any big commitment — to learn more about the idea and evaluate how well you’d be working together!
In both cases, we offer (among other things)
- A €2500 monthly allowance during your participation in the programme
- A €250,000 pre-seed investment on startup creation, if you are successful. You and your team will own 80% of the company at pre-seed.
- Full-stack support in our venture creation programme
- Mentorship and guidance at every step of the way
- Hands on support across technology and market research, landing interviews with experts and customers, techno economic modelling, roadmap and scaleup strategy, sourcing your future co-founders and advisors, and more
- Access to an unparalleled network across science, industry, talent, investors, mentors, and other climate deeptech founders
- Access to our research insights, knowledge base and curated resources
- Weekly check-ins, work sessions in our Paris HQ (or remote) and continuous peer learning with other programme participants
- Seed Fundraising support after the programme. Introductions to the best seed investors and help with term sheet negotiation.
- Founder Visa sponsorship if you wish to relocate to France. Remote participation is possible, preferably from Europe and with regular in-person meetings.
How To Apply
We are currently taking applications for the April 2023 cohort:
We believe that a diverse group of minds is key to solving the climate crisis. We strongly encourage women and people of colour to apply.
Studies have shown that under-represented candidates are less likely to apply for a role unless they feel they meet every single qualification.
We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and mission-driven cohort. If you’re excited about the programme but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with what you read on our website, we encourage you to apply anyways!
FAQs
For a full list of FAQs, please visit our website.