From Williamsburg Basement to Market Leader: How One Founder Built Brooklyn's Most Promising Climate-Tech Startup

When Sarah Chen launched Carbontrace from a 600-square-foot basement studio on North 6th Street in Williamsburg three years ago, she was operating on conviction and a modest $50,000 seed round. Today, her climate-technology startup has raised $18 million in Series B funding and moved into a sleek 15,000-square-foot office in Dumbo, where a team of 67 engineers and product specialists are reimagining how corporations measure their environmental impact across global supply chains.

The company's timing, it turns out, was impeccable. As regulatory pressure mounts—from SEC climate disclosure rules to the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism—multinational corporations are desperate for software that can track emissions across thousands of suppliers in real time. Carbontrace's platform integrates with existing enterprise resource planning systems to automate what was once a laborious manual process, helping clients reduce reporting costs by an estimated 40 percent while improving accuracy.

"The market was ripe for disruption," said Chen, whose background spans sustainability consulting at McKinsey and product roles at a logistics software company. "But what really unlocked growth was understanding that CFOs care about emissions because boards care about emissions. We built the product for the decision-makers, not the sustainability departments."

The startup's trajectory reflects a broader renaissance in New York's innovation ecosystem. Unlike the cryptocurrency boom that dominated venture discussions here five years ago, today's capital is flowing toward climate technology, biotech, and AI applications addressing tangible problems. According to data from Pitchbook, New York-based climate tech startups attracted $2.3 billion in funding during 2025—nearly triple the figure from 2022.

Carbontrace's success has also caught the attention of major accelerators and investment groups clustered around the city. The company completed Y Combinator's winter batch in 2024 and counts backers including Breakthrough Energy Ventures and DBL Partners, both of which maintain significant operations in Manhattan.

The startup is expanding rapidly, with plans to open a second engineering hub in Brooklyn's Industry City complex by year-end. Chen attributes the choice to proximity to talent and the increasingly collaborative ecosystem of climate-focused companies establishing roots in the borough—from renewable energy platforms to sustainable materials manufacturers.

For New York's business community, Carbontrace represents something increasingly rare: a homegrown founder building genuine enterprise software at scale, creating hundreds of knowledge-worker jobs, and solving a problem that matters to global business. In a city perpetually anxious about brain drain and competition from Silicon Valley, that's a win worth celebrating.

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