0:01

Up next a conversation with Marta Sjögren

0:03

, co-founder and co-CEO of

0:05

Paebble . Think about it Concrete

0:07

is everywhere Our cities , our homes

0:09

and our roads . But did you know that for every

0:11

ton of cement we produce , we release

0:13

a ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere ? Now

0:16

what if we could flip that ? What if concrete

0:18

became part of the climate solution instead

0:21

of the problem ? Well , enter Paebbl

0:23

. In this conversation , we'll cover

0:25

Marta journey . What did

0:28

she learn going from investor to founder ? What

0:30

is it really like scaling a deep tech startup

0:33

that has to build factories instead of

0:35

just writing codes ? And why

0:37

did she ignore investors who told her co-CEOs

0:40

don't work ? I'm Lars Crama , and

0:42

this is episode 66 of Start to Scale

0:44

, the podcast where we explore the journey of

0:46

remarkable founders . Now . Marta

0:48

spent over a decade backing startups as

0:50

a VC , but now she's on the other side

0:52

of the table , scaling Paebbl across Europe

0:55

. She's balancing deep tech

0:57

, innovation , manufacturing at scale and

0:59

a fast growing team . She's

1:01

building a company that could change the

1:03

way we build the world . She's

1:05

a serial migrant obsessed with frameworks

1:07

, and here to share her story , Marta

1:10

welcome .

1:11

Thank you .

1:12

We are in your great office here in Rotterdam

1:14

. Let me just kick off . What is the one thing

1:16

no one tells you about ? Moving from VC

1:19

to running your own company ?

1:20

How humbling of an experience . It is there

1:24

you go .

1:24

So all the VCs out there listening . This is the other

1:26

side of the world , right ?

1:28

that's it .

1:29

There we go . We're gonna dive into that

1:31

a lot more . Um , I

1:33

had the pleasure of being here a couple months ago , together with

1:35

constantine , when we looked at your um

1:37

, your operations . Um , and

1:40

I think Paebbl is one of the most promising

1:42

companies in europe today . Um , and you talk about humbling , but I think you're also

1:44

one of the most promising companies in Europe today . And you talk about humbling , but I

1:46

think you're also one of the most humble founders I've

1:48

come across . I'm really curious to dive into your story

1:50

. We'll start with four statements that you

1:52

can answer with true or false . Okay , you ready

1:55

.

1:55

Yes .

1:56

By 2050 , Paebbl will be able

1:58

to restore the planetary carbon balance

2:01

by a billion tons of

2:03

CO2 . True , let

2:10

that sink in . Rotterdam is secretly the best city in europe

2:12

for process engineering . True scaling

2:14

a deep tech company is just like scaling

2:16

software . False having

2:19

two ceos is a recipe for disaster

2:21

.

2:22

False , false , yeah obviously that was easier .

2:24

Okay , so maybe let's set the stage here . We

2:27

talked about you being invested before . Maybe tell us

2:29

the origin story . What led

2:32

you to building a company that

2:34

turns carbon dioxide into building

2:36

materials ?

2:37

Thanks for that question . So

2:39

I spent just north of a decade

2:42

in venture capital , investing

2:44

in all sorts of industries , all sorts of companies

2:46

, early stage , always sometimes

2:48

hardware , but always software enabled

2:50

hardware . I'd

2:53

learned quite a bit about managing

2:56

capital and managing risk

2:58

as you invest early stage and building portfolios

3:01

, and that was super fun and I'm very , very

3:03

grateful for that . That beginning of my

3:05

career , as I started

3:07

thinking about the climate crisis or

3:10

you know kind of what do we , what

3:12

responsibility do we have as investors

3:14

into the future that's being built for our

3:17

kids and , you know , future generations

3:19

, I started realizing that , as

3:21

a generalist investor , I wasn't really

3:24

doing my part . It's great to invest

3:26

into , you know , accounting , software or

3:28

music or like whatever , but

3:32

I felt that for me , with

3:34

my background of living in pretty

3:36

broken countries and seeing also

3:38

kind of how climate change is affecting people

3:41

very close to me , I started

3:43

realizing that I needed to do more and

3:45

I needed to focus the second decade of

3:48

my career towards aligned

3:50

company building or company investing

3:53

, and so

3:55

I started thinking about what that means

3:57

and I started creating a

3:59

framework , one of the many

4:01

frameworks that I kind of live

4:03

by , and that framework

4:05

led me to analyze companies

4:08

. The idea was that I would start a fund

4:10

actually in in

4:12

climate tech and

4:14

I wanted to have a stringent enough framework

4:16

such that number one , whatever

4:19

technology I was investing or partner building

4:21

or whatever would could not

4:23

be deemed as greenwashing

4:26

. Okay yeah that was the most

4:28

important thing , because I had seen so much money

4:30

flood into either purposefully or

4:32

, let's say , unintentionally

4:35

greenwashing solutions that

4:37

I didn't want to have anything to do with that makes

4:40

sense the second filter that

4:42

I I developed was okay . So if it's not

4:44

greenwashing , how scalable is

4:46

it in the coming decades ? That was important

4:48

as well . And then you have a lot of

4:50

amazing ideas , but they're just

4:52

going to take a little while longer to actually scale

4:54

. So I was . I said you

4:56

know , I'm happy to take on high

4:59

engineering risk . I'm not happy to

5:01

take on high science risk against

5:04

it being a scalable solution

5:06

within the coming decade . And

5:09

then the third one is well , technically

5:11

scalable is one thing , and then commercially

5:13

viable is another aspect of scalability

5:15

, and so I wanted to work

5:18

with technologies that could be viable

5:21

commercially in the coming decade

5:23

, even in a bear market

5:25

. At that point in time this was about

5:27

five years ago I started thinking about this . At

5:30

that point in time , we had

5:32

the longest bull cycle in

5:35

a long time , I think most of my career . Actually

5:37

, interestingly enough , the beginning of my career was

5:39

definitely not a bull cycle . Instead of my career in 2008

5:42

, as Lehman happened and everything

5:45

, and I saw a very , very

5:47

hard time for

5:49

VC-backed businesses . So I'm very

5:51

grateful for that , because it

5:54

taught me how to not

5:57

see the world just through the rosy lens . But

5:59

what are some of the hard decisions that entrepreneurs

6:01

had to deal with ? Vcs as well

6:04

, and that was like the beginning of my career

6:06

, and then , from 2008 and onwards

6:08

it it was how

6:10

shall I say ? It was just rosier and rosier

6:12

. there was the era spring in 2011

6:16

or 2012 , whatever , it was it was a little

6:18

blip , but generally the market

6:20

was just getting better and better and

6:22

I realized that that was not going to continue forever

6:24

and that's why

6:26

I wanted to make sure that the business model will

6:28

hold up even in a recession

6:31

. And lo and behold , we obviously entered

6:33

that , and so that was part of the

6:36

kind of resilience

6:38

planning . So once

6:40

I developed those three kind

6:42

of filters around what I wanted to work

6:44

with , I realized that not very many companies

6:46

actually pass those filters

6:49

, and one of the technologies

6:51

that I was evaluating as part of kind of pipeline

6:55

building of a potential deal flow was mineralization

6:58

. I realized there was very , very few companies

7:00

actually working with that , and

7:02

that's when I decided well , what if you know , what

7:05

if I help him build that ? And actually it was

7:07

my co-founder , Jane , that sort of pushed me

7:09

off that cliff and said you know

7:11

, you know about build like investing

7:14

, but why don't you do something real and actually

7:16

build this thing ?

7:17

Go to the other side . Yeah , that's right , cool

7:19

, and that's when it's . I think that's a really

7:21

smart framework , by the way . So just replaying

7:24

in my head so not greenwashing , making

7:26

sure it's scalable , but then also making sure it survives

7:29

in economic downturns . I think any

7:31

entrepreneurs listening , particularly in this space

7:33

, obviously well , hopefully

7:35

they took that into account already , but that's a smart

7:38

way of looking at it . Okay , then you said so mineralization

7:40

is a topic that you want to embark on . Maybe

7:43

for the people that do not know what

7:45

Paebbl does , can

7:48

you in really layman's terms explain what the problem is that you

7:51

solve without giving all the details

7:53

, but how does it work in practice ?

7:55

Absolutely so . Very simply

7:57

put , we take captured

8:00

CO2 , carbon dioxide

8:02

, and we turn it into

8:04

a solid mineral . And

8:07

a little bit more elaborated

8:09

. What nature does in

8:11

its own right is that the carbon cycle

8:14

means that the

8:16

carbon itself goes from one state to

8:18

another , and it's either part of a short

8:20

carbon cycle or a long carbon cycle . This

8:22

is just how nature works , and

8:25

carbon in the

8:27

solid phase is called a

8:30

carbonate , so

8:32

some carbonates you might be familiar

8:34

with is calcium carbonates or magnesium

8:36

carbonates . Many mountains

8:39

are made up of these carbonates

8:41

, and so

8:44

what nature does is also that it takes

8:46

CO2 from the air , even

8:49

if it's not humanly emitted , or if it

8:51

is whatever , it doesn't matter and it will

8:53

. Through rain , it will bring down

8:56

those molecules and then they

8:58

will , over time , solidify . So

9:00

that's the natural mineralization process . All

9:03

that Paebbl does is that it accelerates

9:06

that reaction quite considerably

9:08

, by millions of times much

9:10

faster , to force that

9:12

reaction to happen in a chemical

9:14

reactor , thereby meaning

9:17

that we can help nature not only

9:19

scale itself but also accelerate

9:21

its own natural reactions , and

9:24

the output , obviously , is that you get a

9:26

mineral that otherwise you would have dug

9:28

up from the earth in any case , but we

9:31

produce it synthetically .

9:32

Yeah , so speeding up nature's process

9:35

of turning carbon dioxide into a

9:37

fixed material again , and

9:39

you have a reactor that is doing that . We'll not dive

9:41

into all the details , but we're going to ask

9:43

you for a link to put in the show notes . Maybe a

9:45

little bit more on those that really want

9:47

to go deep . But

9:49

then what kind of problem does that solve ? So , on the other

9:51

hand , what kind of customers problem

9:54

are you solving ?

9:57

Yeah , so we're solving two problems

9:59

. Primarily , we have way

10:02

too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

10:04

. I think that's not news to anyone really

10:06

anymore and luckily

10:09

the corporate world as well

10:11

as governments are waking up to the fact that we've

10:13

got to deal with this issue . So

10:16

for anyone willing to get

10:19

rid of the CO2

10:21

, the gas we can solve

10:23

for that and

10:25

help . Instead of pumping the CO2 under

10:28

the sea or in some mountain

10:30

or something like that , which is one

10:32

of the roots of dealing with CO2 , we

10:34

instead put it to good use . And

10:36

that brings me to the second solution is

10:39

that if you're looking for low-carbon

10:41

materials for your concrete mix , we

10:44

provide that . Because we utilize

10:46

the carbon , we produce

10:48

a very low footprint

10:51

or negative footprint very soon co2

10:54

material , which is carbon

10:56

storing cool , yeah , that's so .

10:58

There's two things . One is the storing , actually , and then turning

11:00

it into a product and on the desk . Here there's a little

11:03

well , it's a podcast so we can't

11:05

show it , but it's a little uh , concrete or

11:07

cement house that I got when I was here last

11:09

time . My kids still talk about it because basically

11:11

it shows how that's um captured

11:13

co2 sits in a building

11:15

material you can actually use within a lower footprint

11:18

. So it solves two , uh , kills

11:20

boot two . Well , I always find that sound really

11:22

horrible kills two birds with one stone . That's

11:25

not very animal friendly , but that's what

11:27

you do . So cool and

11:30

again , so I think it's a great company . Maybe let's go

11:32

to the co-CEO story , because

11:35

we talked about this beforehand . You have

11:37

co-CEO in your role , which

11:41

I think is super interesting , together with Andreas . What

11:43

got you to decide to go for

11:45

that model ?

11:46

And then also , how

11:52

does it work in practice ? Sure , so again , this comes from both my experience

11:54

and also other co-founders experience

11:56

. What I've seen in my career is

11:58

that companies in

12:01

my previous portfolio or the portfolios

12:03

that I was involved in , the companies

12:05

that somehow had scaled best and

12:07

were more successful , were usually

12:09

co-led Either in a co-CEO

12:11

model or a chairman , chairwoman

12:13

, chairperson , whatever and CEO model

12:15

, but duly led . And

12:19

that got me thinking okay , is this

12:21

an anomaly ? Is this just in our portfolio

12:23

? It happens to be some kind of a Scandinavian model

12:25

, perhaps Nordic model , or

12:28

is it more widely applicable ? So

12:30

I started looking into it and there's increasing

12:33

research that suggests that actually

12:35

the CEO role is

12:37

better handled

12:39

when it's shared . Then

12:42

practically you know , I've worked with so

12:45

many CEOs it is an exceptionally lonely

12:48

role and that makes it

12:50

very difficult . And so when

12:54

Andrea and I knew , by the way , that Andreas

12:56

was amazing with people and

12:58

working with teams and building those he had that

13:00

experience Whereas I didn't

13:02

, but I the experience and , um

13:04

, kind of the trust of the investors we

13:07

decided that to put those two together

13:09

and say , okay , let's try co-leading

13:11

this company and then commit

13:13

to it for two years and then

13:15

see whether we change

13:17

the model and we're

13:20

brutally honest with each other , and that's

13:22

one of the huge strengths of this partnership

13:24

. And two years into

13:26

our journey , we're now in the third year of

13:28

our journey . Um , we

13:31

decided to recommit because both of us

13:33

felt that the model was working so well

13:35

that we were able to have each other's back

13:37

. We are kind of we're

13:39

very yin yang in terms of personalities

13:42

and that gives us a

13:44

stronger decision making ability because

13:47

you see kind of the both the glass half

13:49

full , glass half empty approach and

13:51

you're able to mitigate risk but also take

13:53

take considerable risk as a result

13:55

cool , yeah , and then .

13:57

So you said yin yang , that's one , but then also

13:59

sharing the loneliness probably is the second

14:01

part , because you can decide together

14:04

on where to go . And how did the investors accept

14:06

that ? I mean not everybody . Well

14:08

, at least here in the netherlands we often see like , oh , we want

14:10

to have one person who's responsible . How

14:12

did they respond ?

14:13

we had a lot of . You know , this is um

14:16

, if I kind of take you from the beginning , from the seed

14:18

round , we had a whole bunch of investors that were kind

14:20

of like , no , I don't believe in that . So we just decided

14:23

not to continue those dialogues

14:25

. Also , in the series A , we had a lot of not

14:28

a lot of but we had some kind of pushback from some

14:30

investors . In both cases

14:32

we were very fortunate that we were

14:34

able to choose and

14:37

we chose to work with people who believed

14:39

in us being able to decide how to lead our

14:41

own company . At the end of the day , I wouldn't want anyone deciding for me how I decide how to lead our

14:43

own company . At the end of the day , that's you don't . I wouldn't want anyone

14:46

deciding for me how I'm going to lead my own company

14:48

and I wouldn't want investors who

14:50

would want to decide that for us either .

14:52

Yeah , you want to be the entrepreneur , so you want to be

14:54

the entrepreneur , yeah moving and over time

14:56

you've onboarded quite a few prominent

14:59

investors . Obviously , your network must

15:02

have indeed helped there . I think

15:04

, if I look on deal room , more than

15:06

35 million in total and the recent round , 25

15:08

million , um , to also make sure you

15:10

get the plans ready . So there's a well

15:13

, let's say , traditional vc , there's family offices

15:15

, there's an industry player like wholesome uh

15:18

, in there maybe , what has been

15:20

your approach to finding the right

15:22

investors to join you on this journey ? What

15:24

kind of ? Could you maybe highlight what ? What is

15:26

? What is it that you think made it successful

15:28

so far ?

15:29

so good question . For

15:31

us , designing our financing

15:34

round was something we've done both with the seed round

15:36

and the series a . With a seed

15:38

round , it was very important to us to have a set of

15:40

aligned long-term capital

15:42

investors . That

15:45

meant evergreen type of funds or at

15:47

least longer than 10-year duration

15:49

funds , or even if it's a 10-year

15:51

duration fund that you have kind of cross-fund

15:53

investing type of

15:55

abilities . So all three

15:58

of our institutional funds are

16:01

either evergreen funds and

16:03

then one of them has the ability to cross-invest

16:06

. So that

16:08

gave us the confidence that we wouldn't have to sell

16:10

the company in the first seven

16:12

years to meet some kind of timing

16:15

issue . Also

16:17

, obviously , from my background I'm

16:20

intimately familiar with kind

16:23

of how to think about fund life cycles . So

16:25

we made sure that all of the funds were early

16:28

on in their fund life cycle if they did

16:30

have a life cycle and if they didn't , if they were evergreen

16:32

that there was enough capital to be invested over the

16:34

longer term . And that was a seed

16:36

round and very purposeful

16:39

on not including any strategics in the

16:41

seed round , because then they have too

16:43

much of an input when you're still very

16:45

, very early on . Yeah , series a was

16:47

different series a . By

16:49

the time we raised the series a we or we

16:51

were starting to raise we realized that we had

16:53

some risks . Part

16:56

of this was because we were preparing

16:58

for the series a and were able to

17:00

understand also what reservations

17:03

investors had , but

17:06

also preempt some of the risks

17:08

that we know we would face between Series A and Series

17:11

B . The most important one

17:13

is the demand side risk .

17:15

Right market side .

17:16

Market side . Yeah , so we

17:18

knew we were entering a very

17:21

mature market with

17:23

very limited risk appetite , long

17:26

sales cycles , long product certification

17:28

cycles , basically very regulated market

17:30

. Not only that

17:32

, but we were entering a commodity market where

17:35

price taking is

17:37

quite to be taken you

17:39

should assume price taking and

17:43

we thought hold on a second . We're coming out with

17:45

something that's quite

17:47

new in the world and

17:49

where we want to make sure that we can

17:51

create a profitable business case that can

17:53

actually scale so we can get to that one gigaton

17:55

of carbon balance restoration

17:58

by 2050 . And

18:00

so we thought we need to partner with

18:02

really early adopters that get

18:04

it and that want to be part of this transition

18:07

. So , together with our investor 2050

18:10

, we designed a kind of alignment

18:12

methods on looking at what

18:14

an aligned value chain might be , and

18:18

we mapped out kind of the even , the

18:20

end customer , the asset owners

18:22

, asset managers , and so who

18:24

is kind of furthest along in their

18:26

journey of seeing their own footprint or

18:28

their own sustainability vision

18:30

needing to take

18:33

a few steps forward , and

18:35

amazon was very much top of that list

18:37

um , yeah we had a couple

18:39

more but and we honestly , like

18:41

we never thought we would get kind

18:43

of that good of a brand name

18:46

, a global footprint , um , a

18:48

truly kind of um demonstrated

18:51

track record of adopting early stage

18:53

technology and pushing it forward . So we're very

18:55

, very fortunate to get them . Then

18:57

the middle of the chain is usually the most difficult

19:00

. So when I say the chain , you have

19:02

the asset owners , managers , and then

19:04

they have suppliers , such

19:06

as construction companies building the actual projects

19:09

.

19:09

Yeah , and with assets sorry assets you mean buildings

19:11

. Yeah , buildings , that's right .

19:14

And those suppliers , those contractors

19:16

, construction companies they buy their materials

19:18

from the cement folks or building materials

19:21

vendors . And so

19:23

we said , what if we could get one representative

19:26

of each part of that value chain

19:28

to be part of our journey ? And

19:30

not only that , but also for us to align interests for each part of that value

19:32

chain to be part of our journey , and not only that , but also for us to align interests for

19:35

each part of the value chain to be part of

19:37

carbon custodianship . And

19:39

then we tried executing against that and we're very fortunate

19:42

to get obviously I mentioned Amazon earlier

19:44

on In the middle of the value chain we have the

19:46

Goldbeck family with their impact

19:48

investment arm . Goldbeck

19:50

is one of the largest construction companies in Germany

19:53

and therefore the

19:55

biggest European market . And then

19:57

we have Holcim , that's

19:59

on the building materials , and is globally

20:01

the leader in this and also

20:03

has the most advanced agenda

20:06

, I believe on decarbonizing their

20:08

portfolio , cool . So that

20:10

was kind of how we decided we said we need . It

20:12

needs to be roughly 50

20:14

percent um , at least 50

20:16

percent financial and

20:18

the rest can come from um strategics

20:22

. It ended up being something

20:24

like that cool .

20:25

Basically , that sounds like a very thought

20:27

out , methodical process of getting

20:29

and starting with that end line , looking who

20:31

you need in the value chain and then also , in the end , onboarding

20:33

them as investors . Right , because you can have that wishlist

20:36

, but in the end getting them on board

20:38

, I think job well done . And

20:40

then the question is so what will be the next round ? Because

20:43

now this will carry

20:45

you some way , but you already talked about

20:47

the Series B , so what are you going to need for the next one ?

20:49

Series B . So

20:52

let's first take why they were raised to Series A

20:54

. At the moment in time when

20:56

, as we're talking right now , we

21:02

are completing and starting up our demo plant , which is a

21:04

considerable kind of milestone for us

21:06

. And once we have

21:08

gotten that demo plant to be operational

21:10

, the next scale up step is

21:12

the first of a kind commercial plant yeah this

21:15

is when you go from . You know , right

21:17

now we have about a kiloton , uh

21:19

1000 tons capacity in the demo

21:21

plant . That's what it's annually

21:24

going to produce . That is not , you

21:26

know , size wise viable because you

21:28

know even just one project can swallow that amount of

21:30

material . And

21:33

that's just one , but we

21:35

will need to scale up considerably . So

21:38

to co-finance that and also to co-finance

21:40

the overall

21:43

R&D roadmap , both

21:45

on the product front and also on process technology further

21:47

developments the Series B will

21:49

be targeted towards that .

21:51

Yeah , okay , okay . Second part . And then that actually

21:53

also ties into my next question , which is we

21:55

are now sitting here in rotterdam . You're from stockholm

21:57

. I think the team is from all over the world . Um

22:00

, scaling a company like yours is

22:02

an international play , so maybe

22:05

can you take us along what your strategy

22:07

is for scaling . And also

22:09

then , linking to my question why

22:11

did you set up a business

22:13

here in Rotterdam ?

22:14

Sure . So again , going

22:16

back to my kind of decade

22:19

plus of working as an investor in

22:22

Europe , I had seen companies

22:24

be kind of copied and pasted across borders

22:26

and countries around Europe time and again . Yeah , so it works in one

22:28

country , then we try to replicate it in others time

22:30

and again .

22:31

Yeah , so it works in one country , then we try to

22:33

replicate it in others .

22:34

That's right , yes , and they usually subscale

22:36

in terms of talent and

22:39

capital and overall ambition

22:41

, and my co-founders

22:43

had seen similar things . So , when we

22:45

decided to set on this journey

22:48

together and , by the way , the co-founders in their

22:50

own right are from three different countries , we have Paul from and , by the way , the co-founders in their own rights are from three different

22:52

countries , we have Paul from here , from

22:54

the Netherlands , not even from Rotterdam , but from the

22:56

Netherlands , we have Andreas from

22:58

Finland , and you had Jane and me from Sweden

23:00

and

23:03

we realized that was the rational thing was

23:05

to think of talent as something

23:08

that is very local in

23:10

various places and

23:13

to to design , therefore , a hubs-based strategy

23:15

to build Paebbl . We wanted Paebbl

23:18

to be a platform of choice for

23:20

ambitious operators

23:23

, researchers , engineers

23:26

, product developers and similar from

23:28

all around the world . But it's at

23:30

least a pan-european and , over

23:32

time , a global play . So that was

23:34

like the first ambition flag , if

23:36

you will , that we , that we planted

23:38

. And then we started thinking , okay , what

23:41

makes sense as talent hubs for

23:43

what we actually need to get done ? And

23:45

the first thing we needed to get done was

23:47

to take Paul's initial

23:49

research work and scale that

23:51

up to R&D state and

23:53

then over time , to pilot and then demo

23:55

state . And so we looked at

23:58

we're very diligent on , we're very data

24:00

driven on where can you do

24:02

this ? Where do you have process engineering talent

24:04

? We evaluated I think it was

24:06

like six or seven different places around Europe

24:08

. We had a scoreboard

24:10

on all sorts of things . Like you know

24:13

, talent is one one thing we were

24:15

looking at . Another thing we were looking

24:17

at is a proximity to um

24:19

, you know , an urban environment

24:22

, proximity to airports

24:24

, proximity to other industry , um

24:27

, and then , last

24:29

but not least , overall ease of doing business

24:31

. And Rotterdam

24:34

was like it was amazing

24:36

coming here and just seeing how

24:38

well set up the city

24:41

was for all of those factors , how

24:44

deep the roots are in process

24:47

engineering and how deep the talent pools are . You know you have what is it ? Four

24:49

or five different refineries and all of the talent pools are . You know you have what

24:51

is it ? Four or five different refineries and

24:53

all of the associated ecosystems

24:56

around ? You have tens of thousands , if not hundreds

24:58

of thousands , of people in the

25:00

50 kilometer radius of

25:02

rotterdam that come with considerable

25:04

experience that we needed right , so that's

25:07

, that's what made sense .

25:08

yeah , so talent and and then , and then

25:10

obviously you're offering , think , an opportunity for maybe

25:12

those people that have been working in oil and gas or other

25:14

industries to now , like you , switched

25:16

from the investment side to the founder

25:18

side on future-proof stuff . I

25:21

think also for the engineers that maybe are listening

25:23

and like , well , I'm now working for a big oil and

25:25

gas company , I want to build the future .

25:29

I think that's a great question , or a great point

25:31

, and I think it's vital also

25:33

to stress that one of the other strategic

25:36

decisions we made was that we wanted to

25:38

build technology that was scalable in

25:40

the coming decades , and that meant

25:42

using a lot

25:44

of established technology , and a

25:46

lot of that technology actually comes from industry

25:49

. A lot of that technology actually comes

25:51

from industry . So

25:53

the same engineers and same operators that are working with oil

25:55

and gas , for example , or mineral processing

25:58

, or chemicals or similar CO2

26:00

as well , they

26:03

can just use the same skill set that they

26:05

have , but towards a different purpose

26:07

. Nice , and that's what we are able to

26:09

offer .

26:10

Cool , and that's what we see well , almost

26:15

behind us here in the different hall . I think we have so many

26:17

, many more things to discuss , but maybe we'll leave

26:19

that to the questions coming in soon

26:21

. The

26:25

one question I wanted to ask you before we go to the break is also your personal

26:27

journey , and I think we share a journey

26:29

there on on burnout and dealing

26:31

with kind of overwhelm . Um , because

26:33

, like me , you've been through a burnout before , um

26:36

, and now you're leading a like

26:38

fast scaling , scale up , with

26:40

a huge mission with all these investors lined up and

26:42

a like a timeline that is pushing you

26:44

in all the sides . So what are you doing

26:47

differently this time to avoid

26:49

that ? You would hit that moment again . What ? What did

26:51

you change in your way of working or

26:53

way of thinking or way of living ?

26:55

Yeah . So this

26:57

is a very important thing to me and also something

26:59

I care deeply about with regards to our team

27:01

. I'm very grateful for

27:04

my burnout . I'm grateful that it happened to me when

27:06

I was 35 and not , you

27:08

know , much later Not

27:10

that I wish anyone to have a burnout , but

27:12

it's good education though it is good

27:14

education , it it shows

27:16

you that you're not superhuman

27:18

, you are human . You do need to rest

27:20

. I learned a lot about my body and

27:22

, you know , I wasn't feeling bad

27:25

not or I wasn't aware that I was feeling

27:27

bad . Let's put it this way I'm a pretty

27:29

kind of a goal-driven person

27:31

and I had my goals and I said , you know , I'll

27:33

just need to sacrifice , for example , sleep , or

27:36

only sacrifice whatever part of quality

27:39

lifestyle for a while , because I'm

27:41

in pursuit of this goal and

27:44

what the burnout taught me is that sleep

27:46

is not something you sacrifice . It

27:49

took me , you know , when I was diagnosed , I

27:51

went through they were trying to figure out

27:53

all sorts of kind of like what is actually going on with you

27:56

. So I went through sleep analysis

27:58

and what was found that , you know , is my rem

28:00

, the rapid eye movement phase of the sleep

28:03

, which is meant to be about 15 to 25

28:05

percent of your sleep for an adult , for

28:08

me was below five percent below

28:11

five percent , below five percent yeah and

28:13

you see me wearing this ring , the

28:15

aura ring , which I love , yeah , and

28:17

I have my uh also my wedding's watch

28:20

, and I have a continuous glucose monitor . I'm

28:22

a very data-driven person as you've gathered

28:25

by now . So I decided that I don't

28:27

really trust this . I'm going to test this myself

28:29

, yeah , um , and the data was

28:31

shocking , you know , and

28:33

it got me really to look at my

28:35

behaviors . It got me to understand

28:38

that I wasn't really in touch with my body or

28:41

with my mind really , in particular , I was so

28:43

focused on my work and also I'm

28:45

a mother of two and

28:47

two humans , and I'm also mother of four

28:50

dogs , four animals , so

28:52

we have lots of responsibility big

28:54

family and

28:57

I realized that I needed to put in place some

28:59

non-negotiables . And those

29:01

non-negotiables mean that I

29:03

need to sleep at least eight

29:05

hours a night . I do

29:08

not consume alcohol past a certain

29:10

hour and , if at all , I've

29:13

also seen the effects of red

29:15

meat in my sleep . So , I've kind

29:17

of cut that out considerably , or

29:19

not a lot of red meat to begin with , but

29:22

right now I notice that if

29:24

I even have it like once , my

29:26

sleep will be disrupted for the next two days .

29:28

Really . So I have all of this data now .

29:30

That tells me you need

29:33

to make choices in life . Also

29:35

, workouts are a very

29:37

important part of my routine because they

29:39

help me not only de-stress , but

29:41

also sleep better , have more energy

29:44

and similar . So my

29:46

message here is you know , listen

29:49

to the data , don't be afraid of the data . My message

29:51

here is you know , listen to the data , don't be afraid of the data , and you can , you

29:54

know , alter your lifestyle choices anytime

29:56

. And it's about the discipline of knowing

29:59

what is the right lifestyle for you .

30:01

Wow , I feel I need

30:03

to . We

30:05

are taking notes here , so I think

30:07

I need to get my data straight again

30:09

, Because when you were talking about sleep , that was clear

30:12

. Then the red meat oh okay , that really kicks in

30:14

. And then alcohol . I still have to work on that , I

30:16

guess , but many people will recognize

30:18

. But thanks for sharing that . I think it's important to

30:20

understand how you've learned from that and

30:22

how you're now , you know , getting both

30:25

mentally and physically in shape and

30:27

ready to run a company like this . We'll

30:29

go to a quick break and then we'll be back .

30:32

You're listening to the podcast of Up Rotterdam

30:35

. We help startups scale and grow

30:37

their business by offering access to talent , access

30:39

to international markets and access to capital

30:41

. Curious how we can make

30:43

the network work for you ? Go to uprotterdamcom

30:46

. This podcast was made possible

30:48

by the City of Rotterdam .

30:52

We're back . What a fascinating

30:54

company you're building . We talked about co-CEO

30:57

got that out of the way . You talked

30:59

about data-driven you know becoming

31:01

a better person founder mentally

31:03

and physically but we've also

31:05

dived into the fascinating world of carbon

31:07

mineralization and how you're growing

31:09

that company . Maybe before we go to listeners' questions

31:11

, we talked about scaling

31:14

up in the next phases of the companies . So what

31:16

are the , the hubs that you're looking for next ? Where

31:18

? Where are you going to ?

31:19

yeah , so right now we have Rotterdam is our biggest

31:22

hub . It is likely going to be our

31:24

biggest hub in the foreseeable future , but what

31:26

we also have is our

31:28

Nordics hubs , um

31:30

, where we , you know , I think

31:32

it's no surprise that industry 4.0 has

31:35

kind of blossomed in the nordics more

31:37

than in most other parts of europe

31:39

, and that means that commercial

31:41

talent , for example , finance , legal

31:43

and , uh , just overall

31:46

commercial product sales uh is very

31:48

strong . There's thousands of people around

31:51

the Nordics that have amazing experience in

31:53

offtake agreements on how to finance

31:56

industry 4.0 , how

31:58

to scale those teams and similar . So

32:00

that's the hub that we're growing quite

32:03

a lot . Now , as we're going from demo to

32:05

a potential first of a kind commercial plant

32:07

, there will be some exciting

32:09

announcements of people who've just joined us

32:11

, so stay tuned for that

32:13

. The other hub that

32:15

we've grown is our UK

32:18

hub . We've identified the

32:20

UK to be the best European

32:23

market for data science , so

32:25

now we have , I think , three or four people

32:27

already there and we'll be growing

32:29

that as well . We want to be a platform

32:31

of choice for talent wherever the skills

32:35

that we need are , so it's likely we're going to expand

32:37

to beyond this in other European cities

32:41

and ecosystems in

32:43

the time to come , but for now

32:46

, we're 53 people , I

32:48

believe , right now , and I think we have 25

32:50

nationalities . So

32:53

no matter if you're based in Rotterdam or Stockholm

32:55

, helsinki or the UK somewhere I

32:58

would love to hear from you perfect , and then all the vacancies

33:00

are on the website Paebbl .

33:02

We'll put that in the show notes as well . Or

33:04

, if you're in this region , hackyourcareercom is

33:06

where we keep all the vacancies of scaleups , but we'll

33:09

make sure people find you there and then , yeah

33:11

, I think it's a great proposition . Wherever you live , there's

33:14

a Paebbl location you

33:16

can deploy your skills , and that links back

33:18

to your strategy of going where the talent is right

33:20

.

33:20

That's right .

33:20

I think that's a really smart strategy

33:22

. So many smart topics in this conversation . Let's

33:25

see if the questions are also smart . First

33:27

question is from Christopher Engman

33:30

. He's the founder of

33:32

MegaDeals . His question

33:34

is ooh , this is a pricing question

33:36

. What is the per ton CO2

33:38

cost you achieve today and what is

33:41

the goal cost per ton CO2

33:43

in the future ?

33:48

So , although I'm not prepared to disclose exact numbers , I can say that right

33:50

now we're in the

33:53

roughly 1,000 euros per

33:55

ton at the scale that we're at right now

33:57

In the first-of-a-kind

34:00

commercial plant . We envisage

34:02

to be in the hundreds

34:04

or perhaps 100-plus euro

34:07

per ton , and

34:09

then , over time , below 100 euros

34:11

per ton yeah , so that's a huge

34:13

uh . Yeah , it's obviously I

34:16

mean it . It it matters

34:18

a lot how big the plants are

34:20

.

34:21

The bigger the plant , the lower the cost of

34:23

the co2 sequestration yes , okay

34:25

, cool , great answer and uh , thanks

34:27

for answering it , at least on the on the high level . Thanks , christopher

34:30

, for asking that question . The next question

34:32

is from uh constantine , who

34:34

is obviously the um special envoy

34:36

of tech leap , who was here with the delegation yes

34:38

yes , hello , hello , hold on there's more

34:44

princes coming in one second um

34:46

. so his question is you're scaling

34:49

in Europe , in the EU , but

34:51

Asia and the Middle East , africa , maya

34:53

, are probably much bigger growth markets

34:55

, so will you move there , or is

34:58

Europe still an interesting enough market for Paebbl

35:00

?

35:01

That's a great question . Thank you so much for that . So

35:04

addressing the Global

35:06

South is a core priority for

35:08

us . That said , the

35:11

global south needs economically viable

35:13

solutions and it

35:16

needs to have proven technology . So

35:18

for us , europe , with its commitments

35:20

to to a

35:23

clean industry as

35:25

being the the first step of scaling

35:27

up , that's a commitment that we have , especially

35:30

in this political environment , challenging

35:32

political environment we find ourselves in . The

35:38

commitment to Europe being the first of a kind commercial plant has never been stronger . That

35:41

said , the next plant , the second , third

35:43

, fourth plant we will

35:45

likely expand to beyond Europe . That's because

35:48

that's where urbanization

35:51

is happening more and more , that's

35:53

where infrastructure is being built and that's where the

35:55

emissions are going to be coming from . Historically

35:57

, you know , the global north has stood

36:00

for most of the emissions . I think the global south

36:02

will be standing for quite a bit of the emissions going

36:04

forward and we want to turn that into

36:06

a climate opportunity as opposed

36:09

to an even bigger pollution problem

36:11

.

36:11

Right . And then the way that you organize your

36:13

operations . That means you'd also need to set up there

36:15

in those locations , right ?

36:17

That's right yeah correct , go local .

36:19

Thanks , constantine , for sending in that question . And

36:22

I have to say this it's funny because I've

36:25

seen him on two stages and when he talks about companies

36:28

that are kind of really building

36:30

the next part of the economy , he always mentioned

36:32

Paebbl . So thank you

36:34

, maybe you got one of those little houses , two

36:36

little Paebbl blocks of concrete

36:38

that I see here . So

36:41

next question is from Paul Knops , we

36:44

obviously know really well , co-founder advisor

36:46

. His question is how

36:48

do you promote diversity in the team and female empowerment ? His question

36:50

is how do you promote diversity in the team and female empowerment and how do you think

36:52

we can get more women in founders positions

36:54

, especially in tech ? And then

36:56

the following question is how do you get around in

36:58

a unfortunately male driven engineering

37:01

world ?

37:05

I love that that question comes from all of all people

37:07

. So

37:16

, firstly , I've never seen my gender , either as an enabler or disabler . I think that's the the first

37:18

starting point . I'm a professional and

37:20

I just expect people not to

37:22

care what I am or

37:25

not . I'm not , um , I

37:27

faced a lot of male-dominated

37:29

industries and companies

37:32

and businesses at the intersection

37:34

of finance and technology and

37:36

I'd say now , technology and industry

37:39

is no easier , let's put

37:41

it that way . But at

37:43

the same time , I see a

37:45

changing world in which role

37:48

models play a huge role . In which

37:50

role models play a huge role and just showing that there is

37:52

representation around the table

37:54

from all sorts of diversity

37:56

elements , whether it's gender , age

37:58

, ethnicity , culture , nationality

38:01

, religion , whatever . I think

38:03

that's the way to

38:06

walk the walk . Here at Paebbl

38:08

, as I mentioned earlier , we're about 50 people

38:10

, 25 nationalities , um

38:13

, we have an age range of

38:15

, I think the youngest is 25 and the

38:17

eldest is about 65

38:19

, 35 , something like that . And

38:22

so we , we walk the walk , you know

38:24

, and we're we

38:27

try to recognize talent , no matter

38:29

where it comes from , and to

38:31

empower people to

38:34

show that they are leading the way

38:36

, whatever it is . That's one side of it

38:38

. The second level of our organizational

38:41

design is that we are

38:44

building , and we want to continue building a

38:46

flat organization . Mm-hmm , what

38:48

does that mean ? It means that hierarchies

38:51

tend to

38:53

promote certain types of personalities

38:55

, whereas flat organizations

38:58

promote other types of leadership

39:00

, and that's what we're doing here , and

39:03

we are able to also show that . You

39:05

know , as we've scaled from just what

39:07

the four co-founders to now 50

39:10

plus people , we have brought

39:12

on leaders that are

39:15

diverse , of all sorts of diversity

39:17

, including gender diversity . And

39:20

creating rules

39:22

of engagement of how we talk

39:24

to each other is the

39:26

third important factor . So

39:29

the first factor was just

39:31

hiring people from all over the place , the

39:33

second one was having a flat organization

39:35

, and then the third one is our operating principles

39:37

. Our operating principles

39:39

involve behavioral

39:42

expectations that encourage

39:45

a more , let's

39:47

say , constructive work environment than a lot

39:49

of the alpha

39:52

male dominated , although I don't like to generalize , yeah

39:56

um , and some of those include things like

39:58

abc . It means always

40:00

be constructive okay and

40:03

then there's like a whole paragraph around what that

40:05

means and what you can do if you see

40:07

somebody not being constructive nice . Another

40:09

one is leave your ego out of the door

40:12

. This was very important to me because

40:14

I've seen a lot of toxic behavior happen

40:16

on the basis of ego , and

40:18

having your

40:20

ego in check is actually rationally

40:23

the best thing you can do , both for yourself

40:25

and for a company , and so we institutionalize

40:28

that nice .

40:29

And then there's others that I'm not going to go into right now

40:31

, but we try to create a expected behaviors

40:34

, uh , type of a situation within

40:36

Paebbl that does not condone toxic

40:38

behavior nice and then getting that right over

40:40

all those generations you talked about , I mean

40:43

people who are in their 20s entering the workforce

40:45

all the way to 60 plus in

40:47

the workforce , have a maybe a different experience coming

40:50

back . So so then the follow-up question . So there's

40:52

. So I assume you have this long list of your

40:54

behaviors that you expect , and then do you

40:56

get to change them over time or do they evolve

40:58

? How does that work ?

41:00

absolutely . I mean we

41:02

are also a learning organization . That's another

41:04

one of the principles that we have . A

41:06

learning organization means that , just

41:09

like a living organism , you need to adapt

41:11

yeah so , for instance , uh

41:13

, when we wrote out the operating principles

41:15

to begin with , like at the very

41:17

beginning of the company , safety was not anywhere

41:19

on there and then we , you

41:21

know , we started working in industry and then

41:24

the engineers that we brought

41:26

on board they're like where is safety ?

41:27

the operating principles . Well , it makes sense . Yeah

41:29

. Then we realized oh yeah , of course , that

41:31

was just . Uh , that was a miss .

41:33

So we made that principle number one

41:35

.

41:35

Yeah , safety comes of course , yeah

41:37

, in this industry , yeah , yes , yeah , yeah . And

41:39

actually , when you enter the office here , obviously you have to , like

41:42

in many , uh , engineering

41:44

industries , you have to , you know , leave your name and

41:46

all the details to make sure that everything's followed

41:48

. So safety's in there now . So you're learning , um

41:51

, and we'll talk again when you have 200 people . If

41:53

you still have that flat structure , because

41:55

that's going to be the challenge , right , how do you keep that

41:57

flatness in the organization going forward

41:59

?

41:59

Well , you know , actually interesting . You should bring

42:02

that point up . We're right now

42:04

in the process of planning how we're going

42:06

to scale the flat structure from 50

42:08

to 200 people . So

42:13

, yes , let's catch up on that in a couple of years time

42:15

. But we're actively designing for what

42:17

I call growing challenges

42:20

, or growing pains that I know every company

42:22

goes through . You know when you're in venture . We

42:24

know that roughly things

42:26

break when you're about 25 people , when you're

42:28

up 50 people and then when you're around

42:30

somewhere between 100 and 200 people yeah so

42:32

if you proactively design around

42:35

that , yeah , maybe you can escape

42:37

some of that . But of course there is the real life

42:39

.

42:39

That just happens parts of it you just have to go

42:41

through . But parts , that's right , you can prevent

42:44

. Uh , final question this is a fun question

42:46

from paul , actually , and this is linking

42:48

back to the prince . He says why did you not

42:50

continue your tradition to hug royalty

42:52

in the netherlands ? Oh my god , paul , maybe

42:56

you have to explain where this goes . I know where it comes from

42:58

. Maybe you have to explain where this comes from so

43:03

, uh , um , this

43:05

is a .

43:05

This is so long . I'm

43:08

gonna get you back for this , paul . Um , this

43:10

goes back to maybe about 30

43:13

. No , hold on a second . This is when

43:15

I was pregnant with my younger son

43:18

, so he's 11 now , so it's about 12

43:20

years ago . I'm

43:22

also not natively Swedish and

43:25

I was invited to present at

43:27

the equivalent of RVO here

43:29

in the Netherlands . We have the Swedish equivalent and

43:32

I was invited to present , kind of just , uh

43:34

, you know what venture investing is

43:36

, and at

43:38

then I had lived in sweden for just

43:40

a couple of years . I didn't , I didn't come to sweden

43:42

speaking swedish and I decided to

43:44

challenge myself , so I decided

43:46

to hold a presentation in swedish . Little

43:49

did I know was that this event was

43:52

kind of a big deal and even the royal

43:54

prince , like Prince Daniel , was , um

43:56

, gonna be there . I also didn't

43:58

. Really , I'm very face blind . I don't

44:00

know who people generally are , even

44:02

celebrities . This is a problem I have . And

44:05

but all of a sudden , you know , as I was going

44:07

up on stage , there was somebody saying you

44:10

know , get up for the royal prince of sweden . I was like

44:12

, oh , holy crap . Um

44:14

, and then I , you know , I presented

44:16

and I , I guess I didn't make

44:18

enough of , or like too much of a fool

44:21

of myself . And afterwards he

44:23

and his delegation came up to me and sort

44:25

of um said , thank you for the

44:27

presentation and we would love to learn more about venture

44:29

capital , can we come visit your company ? And

44:32

so I said , I'm sure we can arrange that

44:34

, I guess . But

44:36

when they came to North

44:38

Zone , which was my employer back then , I

44:41

didn't know how you say hi to the

44:43

royalties so , and in Sweden

44:45

everyone hugs . So I just walk up

44:47

to him and have say oh hi , nice to

44:49

see you , and hug him and to like the great

44:52

shock of just about everyone

44:54

who was there , including like the royal , I don't know , the

44:56

royal squad or something . And

44:59

then , um , yeah , that was , that

45:01

was the first time that happened . I didn't know , I mean

45:03

, it just like looked a little weird , but I was like I was pregnant

45:05

and I thought maybe people just think I'm I don't

45:07

know , big or something uncomfortable , I don't know . But

45:11

then , behold , you know , I gave birth to my son

45:13

. And then , a year later , we were at the

45:15

Slush conference , the conference where my co-founder

45:18

, andreas , was CEO , and I'm

45:20

just walking on like just in front

45:22

of this huge crowd of people and I'm

45:25

walking towards , I think , the Swedish lunch and

45:27

then suddenly I see Prince

45:30

Daniel and his posse walk over

45:32

not towards me , they were just walking and

45:34

he comes over and he actually gives me a hug

45:37

. And then it was like

45:39

this super weird thing where people

45:41

around us were like what is going on ?

45:45

Yeah , it was a funny moment

45:47

. Fantastic . Perhaps you started a movement

45:49

of hugging princes . So

45:51

, constantine , this one's for you . Next time you

45:53

meet marta , give her a big hug anyway

45:56

.

45:56

No , no prince or princess or anyone is forced

45:58

to .

45:58

There's no , there's no pressure , but we will look

46:00

next time if you do it , but there's no pressure . Awesome

46:04

. This was a great anecdote , um marta

46:06

. We can spend much more time , but unfortunately time is up

46:08

. Thanks for sharing your story here , um

46:10

. It's been insightful . You're

46:13

going to be on stage at Epsom Festival as well , so

46:15

those people who want to see you in real life maybe

46:18

dive into a different part of your story , come visit us

46:20

22nd of May in Rotterdam . We've

46:23

talked about many things . We'll put the links in the show notes , but

46:25

the most important thing we close off with is a song

46:28

that you have selected . So would you like to introduce

46:30

the name of the song and why you chose it ?

46:33

Absolutely . I'm going to choose

46:35

one of my favorite songs of all times . May

46:39

or may not be relevant for being a founder , and not the least with what we're building here

46:42

at Paebbl . It is called Under

46:44

Pressure .

46:45

And , of course , great song . Thank

46:47

you , marta . Thank you for listening . Until next

46:50

time , keep it up .

47:20

Thank you , you , marta

47:22

. Thank you for listening

47:25

. Until next time , keep

47:27

it up , thank you . Under

47:29

pressure , the brains are

47:31

filled in dry . Streets are

47:34

failing soon , but

47:36

people are streets . Eat

47:42

it up . Eat it up

47:45

, that's okay . It's the

47:47

terror of knowing what this world

47:49

is about . Watching

47:51

some good friends screaming let

47:53

me out Tomorrow

47:57

. Gets me higher . Passion

47:59

won't beat up people

48:01

on speech Chippin'

48:35

around , keep my brains round the floor , okay . People on streets , people

48:37

on streets . It's a terror of knowing what

48:39

this world is about . Watching

48:42

some good friends screaming let

48:45

me out Tomorrow

48:47

. We're going high and

48:49

high . People , people , people on streets , turned away

48:51

. We're going high and high , high , high . Keep on , keep it on Streets

48:53

, turned

48:57

away from it all , like

48:59

a blind man Sat

49:02

on a fence . But it don't work

49:04

. Keep coming up

49:06

with love , but it's so slashed

49:08

and torn . Why , why , why

49:12

? So slashed and torn ? Why , why , why

49:14

, why

49:16

, why

49:19

, why , why

49:22

, why

49:25

, why , why

49:28

, why , why

49:33

, why can't we give love that one more

49:35

chance ? Why

49:37

can't we give love , give

49:39

love , give love , give

49:42

love , give love , give love

49:44

, give love , give love . No

49:47

flesh and blood . And love dares

49:49

you To

49:54

care for the people

49:56

On

49:58

the edge of the night

50:00

. And love

50:02

dares you To

50:04

change our way of Caring

50:08

about ourselves . This

50:12

is our last dance

50:14

. This is our

50:17

last dance . This

50:20

is ourselves Under

50:23

pressure , under

50:28

pressure , pressure

50:30

, pressure . Thank you .