Climate isn’t “over.” But building in climate has entered a new chapter, defined by shifting regulation, politicized narratives, buyer confusion, and a market that funded dozens of overlapping platforms.
In this episode, Andreas and co-host Carmel Rafaeli, Founding Partner at The Table, sit down with Lubomila Jordanova, Co-founder & CEO of Plan A, just weeks after Plan Ajoined forces with Diginex, the NASDAQ-listed sustainability technology company, at the end of 2025.
The conversation is part of Leaders Shaping a Resilient Planet, a series spotlighting exceptional founders in climate tech who happen to be women. The focus is not identity as a theme, but execution as a discipline. These are operators building in some of the most complex and capital-intensive parts of the real economy.
This is not an acquisition recap. It is a clear-eyed discussion about what it takes to build and responsibly exit a climate tech company in a market that is maturing quickly.
What’s covered:
00:52 The Table: co-investing community + the Foundation’s recoverable grants model
02:05 Introducing Lubomila Jordanova and Plan A
02:45 The acquisition: why Plan A chose to lead consolidation
04:35 Fundraising logic → acquisition logic: what changed
06:40 Founder outcome vs VC outcome: how alignment works in an exit
11:30 “The truth is where the real economy sits”: what carbon software actually sells
13:30 The uncomfortable line: “glorified consulting with a digital angle”
15:05 What VC portfolios get wrong in climate: return distribution, capital stack, secondaries
16:55 Why “climate” can’t be one bucket: hardware vs SaaS vs reporting
20:00 Managing investor perception: visibility, bias, and boardroom baggage
23:15 The broader financial pyramid: VC vs public markets vs real-economy signals
27:35 Post-exit reality: why a public-company KPI lens changes the conversation
31:10 Three founder learnings (humility, ecosystem, real-world problems)
33:55 A rare founder truth: pregnancy during the exit + building with “more hats than one”