Celsias: a Platform for Corporate Social Responsibility

The Pitch:

Celsias is the online marketplace where companies sponsor social entrepreneurs to create and fund corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects. Celsias offers companies the opportunity to sponsor CSR projects and promote their corporate citizenship globally via the growing Celsias community. Celsias offers social entrepreneurs the oportunity to describe their projects on Celsias for free, and then attract a corporate sponsor. The main market is SME’s that need to implement CSR programs to satisfy customer, stakeholder, or contractual requirements but do not have the staff or budget to manage a CSR program in-house. Revenue is based on subscriptions.

Accomplishments to date:

Site traffic has been growing at a compound rate of 65% per month since October 2006. The site has over 90 projects listed, and growing. The Wall Street Journal says that it reads the Celsias blog regularly, and the Times (UK) named Celsias in the top five climate change websites in the world. Celsias recently closed a sponsorship deal with Ricoh and is in negotiations with a major US-based technology company.

Development Plans / Key Challenges:

The trick now is to win a handful of high-profile Fortune 500 clients to validate the offer, and help them to achieve their CSR goals and whilst combatting climate change. At the same time, the site needs to continue to attract high-quality projects, and continue to build the Celsias community and traffic.

Principals & Previous Experience:

CEO: Nick Lewis

• Former CEO of Energy Intellect
• Investment banker and group head at JP Morgan and CIBC World Markets in New York
• Founder and CEO of NADE Corp (outsource drug and alcohol services provider)
• Nuclear engineer at ABB
• Peace Corps volunteer in Yemen
• Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)

COO: Matthew Wright

• UK-trained information architect and web strategist
• Formerly with Shift in Wellington, and Saatchi and Saatchi in London

What they want from an investor:

• NZD 300,000 to lead sales efforts and land corporate clients in USA and New Zealand
• Experience in working with US-based corporates

Dave’s Commentary:

A trust in which I am a trustee purchased Celsias shares when they were first issued a couple of years ago. At the time, they were building a platform for carbon credit aggregation trading, but were soon gazumped when the New Zealand Government decided it was such a great idea they’d do it themselves through Landcare Research’s carboNZero programme. No problem for the team though, they reinvented their value proposition and came up with something much more compelling – how to engage corporates in working toward a more sustainable world.

The Celsias blog is a fantastic source of information and seems to be amassing readers at a remarkable rate. The projects area is growing quickly. Climate change isn’t going to go away anytime soon, and Celsias has established itself as a leading authority on the issue. There would appear to be huge upside potential, and hey, if you get involved you’re deploying your resources to help save the planet and that has to be good on both an individual and a societal level.

How enthusiastic corporates get about climate change CSR, and whether they’re really willing to “walk the talk” remains to be seen. Platforms like Celsias will lower the barrier for companies and people who are truly concerned to do something about it. I’m glad that Nick, Celsias, and New Zealand are leading the way.

Nick says that this will be investors’ last chance to get in on the act as angels, as their next investment round will be VC likely out of the USA. In fact, an angel who can help them achieve US-based VC and/or sell into the Fortune 500 will be very attractive to them.

Contact details:

Nick Lewis
Tel: +64 21381361
Email: nick.lewis@celsias.com

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