Along the way, in 2016, Sai also launched Found Ventures. It invests in early-stage tech companies in Southeast Asia — there are 10 in its portfolio — with a focus on post-investment support such as mentorship, networking and tech development.

With two master’s degrees from the University of Oxford and INSEAD, Sai thrives on solving problems. Her master’s thesis, ‘A Rudimentary Framework on Startup-Driven Corporate Innovation using the Grounded Theory Methodology: A Psychodynamic Approach’, written while she was at the INSEAD, combines psychology and innovation.

And that’s why building ecosystems fascinates her. “Systems thinking has always been the natural lens I use to see the world — it is hard to unsee it once you have it,” she explains.

Every global problem sits within a web of relationships, dynamics and incentives. So having a view on the ecosystem makes the process of problem-solving more effective and long-lasting, albeit not always the easiest nor fastest at the start.”

Unravel Carbon, which Sai set up with Marc Allen in January 2022, was her first after becoming a mother. The story goes that she was trying to write a will to “leave all these material things” to Lea — and it hit her how we are moving into an inhabitable world.

In particular, Asia, which is home to 70 per cent of the world’s supply chains, is responsible for 60 per cent of global emissions. With Earth already 1.1 deg C warmer now than during the late 1800s, there’s much to be done in our own backyard, says Sai.

Unravel Carbon aims to help large or medium-sized companies to assess and reduce their carbon emissions. Through its AI platform, it converts these companies’ accounting data into carbon data, then suggests climate solutions towards net-zero emissions. The CEO says she was inspired by the carbon apps in the business-to-consumer world, for example, that calculate one’s carbon footprint using his or her credit card statements.

Within four months, Unravel Carbon raised $10 million in its seed round, the largest in Asia for a climate tech software firm in Asia, and was led by Sequoia Southeast Asia. It was also accepted into Y Combinator, the prestigious startup accelerator that’s backed companies like Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox and DoorDash.

Sai tries to put the latter into perspective: “That’s harder to get in than Harvard — with an acceptance rate of just two per cent!”

Being a parent allows me to access the ‘softer’ and arguably more effective aspects of leadership.

Although she spent one-and-half years educating herself on climate change before setting up the company, more learning still had to be done while on the job. That’s where her 42-strong team, “who is working hard day and night” to build the decarbonisation platform that aims to help cut one gigaton of carbon emissions by 2030, comes in. “Overindexing on the best talent changes everything. Bringing the best brains in AI, data science, sustainability, product, and marketing into Unravel Carbon makes every day a pleasure, especially in the midst of our battle against climate change.”

With Unravel Carbon, this 38-year-old serial entrepreneur has had to evolve her leadership style too.

“Being a parent allows me to access the ‘softer’ and arguably more effective aspects of leadership. Empathy, patience, being understanding and accepting people or circumstances, and working together to improve the situation, for example. A business can only be built by a team, and these “softer” qualities are necessary to work indirectly through the team, rather than directly by oneself.”

And when she’s not crunching data, Sai’s time is spent teaching Lea about waste — water, food and toys — and reading to her stories of women scientists. “She’s just passed the potty-training phase so she’s still too young to understand climate change; her favourite book is about how animals don’t need to brush their teeth because they don’t eat sugary food!” she shares with a chuckle.

Text: Mary Lim/The Peak

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