In this episode of The SaaS CFO Podcast, we welcome Oksana Tolmatshova, co-founder and CEO of Esgrid, a company providing affordable value chain sustainability management tools for medium-sized enterprises and financial institutions. Oksana shares her 20+ year background in banking and fintech, including her experience studying sustainable finance to understand the essential role the financial sector plays in implementing sustainability. 

Oksana explains how Esgrid solves the problem of the lack of ESG data for small and medium enterprises by streamlining the collection and analysis of this data. Founded in August 2022 by Oksana and 3 other co-founders, Esgrid impressively secured their first paying customer before even writing a line of code for their MVP. The Esgrid platform creates network effects as more companies in a value chain provide their ESG data, making it simple to share with other partners. 

Recently raising a €500,000 pre-seed round, Oksana provides fundraising tips like selling your experienced team early on and being open to alternative funding sources beyond just VCs. She also shares Esgrid’s key metrics, including the number of companies on the platform that have completed ESG assessments and maintaining a high success rate in boosting client efficiency. 

Tune in to hear more about Oksana's entrepreneurial journey with esgrid and their mission to improve the sustainability of thousands of SMEs across the EU. 

Show Notes: 

00:00 Studied sustainable finance, saw lack of data. 

06:11 New in market, sales cycle: 2-3 months. 

09:34 Found co-founders, grew the business together. 

13:07 Network growth, product-led, and sustainability partnerships. 

16:50 Challenges in sustainability investment amid legislative noise. 

18:00 Lessons: Team is key, seek diverse funding. 

21:12 Appreciate insights and look forward to following. 

Links: 

SaaS Fundraising Stories: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/esgrid-secures-500-000-in-pre-seed-round 

Oksana Tolmatshova’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oksanatolmatshova/ 

Esgrid’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/esgrid/ 

Esgrid’s Website: https://esgrid.com/ 

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