Marble is a climate tech venture studio. We partner with scientists, engineers and operators to create companies solving hard climate problems in the world's largest industries.
Our first 10 companies are building transformative products across energy, industry, agriculture and climate resilience. 100% have been successful in raising follow on to date. We are looking to partner with exceptional individuals to create our next venture.
Scaling Climate Tech With Robotics
The clean industrial transition means the world need to deploy 5-10x more physical assets within the next two decades. Yet, we're running out of skilled workforce to build and service them.
Across industries, labor bottlenecks are acute. O&M roles face up to 50% turnover globally, with millions of skilled jobs unfilled. Critical tasks are increasingly expensive and hard to staff, such as thermal retrofits, renewables and grid deployment, industrial machinery operations, or inspections in hazardous environment.
Compounding factors include stagnant productivity, aging populations, limits on immigration, and the security imperative for domestic supply chains.
Enter robotics. Rapid advancements in autonomy, multi-modal sensing and rugged hardware could let robots operate 24/7 outdoors, slash build times and service costs, enhance safety, and capture new data in a way that humans cannot.
We're exploring new ideas for the coming robotics wave to deliver the climate tech infrastructure in a way that's better, faster, cheaper, and safer.
The Opportunity
We’re excited about use cases where robotics can unlock speed and scale in the deployment phase of critical climate industries, such as energy, utilities, logistics, manufacturing, construction, agriculture, mining and climate resilience.
In particular, we're interested in sectors where there is an acute labor shortage, where work is either dangerous or difficult to perform, and where robots could provide fast and consistent value to customers, with a capex payback within 18 months.
Approaches we're considering include:
Specialized robotics. Robots optimized for industry verticals, which leverage mature technical stacks and falling hardware costs. The range of applications is vast, e.g. infrastructure deployment, inspection, maintenance, transport, manufacturing …
Enabling hardware systems. Frontier robotic technologies which allow for novel use cases with high climate upside. Examples include new sensors, actuators, soft robotics, morphological computing, new materials, robotic assembly, and more.
Physical intelligence. New AI systems for operating in chaotic outdoors environment. This includes embodied AI and edge inference (e.g. low-latency controls), better sim-to-real feedback loops, physics-based and domain-specific models, etc.
From a product and business model perspective, we're considering three approaches:
Hardware as a service, leasing robots or parts as OPEX with maintenance
Outcome based contracts, e.g. paying per MW installed, hectare planted, etc
Vertical integrators / developers with robotics in the backend
Skills & Profile
We're looking for a technical founder who’s obsessed with going on the terrain, thrives in fast iteration and has an evident founder <> problem fit. You don’t need to come from “robotics” per se. But you should have a deep understanding of systems where automation has a right-to-win.
Examples of relevant profiles:
Robotics engineer, ideally with experience deploying robots in the field, e.g. energy, construction, manufacturing, mining, logistics, maritime, agriculture, etc
Robotics researcher, with an expertise in autonomy, perception or embedded systems, looking to build and deploy in the real world.
Startup founder / operator / investor with exposure to robotics, climate tech, and/or passionate about specific industry verticals
We encourage you to apply even if you don’t feel you meet all requirements. Above all, we value intelligence, creativity and Founder Potential.
Especially if you recognise yourself below:
You can’t wait to start your own company (or your next one)
You are a pragmatic optimist on a mission to tackle climate change
You are outcome focused and action oriented - you make things happen
You are a great communicator - you can convince others to follow you
You love to break down ambitious goals into actionable milestones
You understand that innovation starts with people - not ideas
What We Offer
As a Founder-in-Residence, you will join other stellar individuals who also believe in the need for deep tech solutions to solve hard climate problems.
Together, we would be scoping high potential approaches before converging on the most promising one and finding your future co-founders
We offer (among other things)
A €2,500 to €3,000 monthly allowance during the programme
A €250,000 pre-seed investment on startup creation if you’re 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 economics, roadmap and scale up strategy, IP strategy, team building, advisor sourcing, and more Access to an unparalleled network across science, industry, talent, investors, mentors, climate tech founders, curated vendors and suppliers Access to our research insights, knowledge base and founder 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 from our network 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 looking for the best candidate - so you are welcome to apply as soon as possible.
We believe that a diverse group of minds is key to solving the climate crisis. We encourage women and people of colour to apply.
Studies have shown that under-represented candidates are less likely to apply for an opportunity 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.
Marble is a climate tech venture studio. We partner with scientists, engineers and operators to create companies solving hard climate problems in the world's largest industries.
Our first 10 companies are building transformative products across energy, industry, agriculture and climate resilience. 100% have been successful in raising follow on to date. We are looking to partner with exceptional individuals to create our next venture.
