Sure the latest initiatives from the Teslas, Apples and Googles of the industry tend to dominate the tech news space — and with good reason. Still, the tech titans aren’t the only ones bringing innovation to the sector.
In an effort to highlight up-and-coming tech companies, Built In launched The Future 5 across seven major U.S. tech hubs. Each quarter, we will feature five early-stage tech companies, nonprofits or entrepreneurs in each of these hubs who just might be working on the next big thing. Read our round-up of Boston’s rising startups from last quarter here.
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As an economist, Jean-Louis Warnholz knows that people will most likely take action when it serves their economic interest. When it comes to decarbonizing the economy, then, he knew a financial incentive would be needed to change consumer behavior at scale.
Warnholz is the co-founder and CEO of fintech startup Future. The startup developed a debit card that rewards consumers with 5 percent cash back when they pay for environmentally sustainable products and services such as public transportation, bikeshare programs, plant-based protein products and secondhand clothing from recommerce marketplaces.
Future’s debit card, which is called FutureCard, also rewards users with 6 percent cash back when they support eco-friendly companies that partner with Future.
“There’s this presumption that sustainability means paying more and that it’s only accessible to those who have the extra money to spend,” Warnholz told Built In. “That’s something that we’re turning upside down. Sustainability is for everybody. It’s something that everyone can access, and we are building the kind of ecosystem that makes it as simple and as rewarding as possible for you to become part of the fast-growing sustainable economy.”
Warnholz, who has a master’s degree in economics from the University of Oxford, has spent most of his career focused on facilitating investment in Africa and other emerging markets. He served as an advisor in the Office of Secretary of State for Hillary Clinton and was the founding principal of BlackIvy, which provides infrastructure for economic growth in Africa.
After years of focusing on the economy, Warnholz said his experience in Africa made it clear to him that the greatest barrier to economic growth was climate change.
“In Kenya, we’ve seen droughts, heat waves and flooding that really make it challenging for farmers and other folks living in the countryside to make a living,” he said. “I realized that everything I cared for so deeply was threatened by climate change.”
Warnholz co-founded Future with CTO Kamal Bhattacharya in the fall of 2021. The startup, which graduated from Techstars Boston, is headquartered near Washington, D.C., but its product team is based out of Greentown Labs in Somerville. Last year, Future raised a $5.3 million seed funding round led by Accomplice, a Cambridge-based venture capital firm.
We believe that for carbon to really matter as a signal in the economy, it has to be real and we have to really go to the nitty gritty.”
When developing the FutureCard, the startup worked with researchers from several universities to identify which products and services should be considered environmentally sustainable, Warnholz said. More than 50,000 businesses qualify for additional cash back rewards with the FutureCard, including companies like Patagonia which has oriented its business around sustainability. Future does not take into consideration whether a company has pledged carbon neutrality or purchased carbon offset credits.
“We want to work with companies that either have products like an electric vehicle … or companies that have really made decisive investments to lower the carbon footprint of their offering,” Warnholz said.
Although financial institutions can often break down a user’s spending habits with categories like “restaurants” or “entertainment,” Future had to create its own carbon dataset. Warnholz describes it as a “ledger for the sustainable economy.” The technology is able to distinguish, for example, between a Lyft car ride and a bike-sharing program owned by Lyft.
Future also uses machine learning to identify line item purchases from retailers, which provides more granular insights into consumer spending.
“We believe that for carbon to really matter as a signal in the economy, it has to be real and we have to really go to the nitty gritty,” Warnholz said.
Future launched FutureCard in September, and it has already issued more than 10,000 cards to members in the first four months. Warnholz said people find out about FutureCard through word of mouth, digital advertising and promotions at environmentally-minded retailers like PLNT Burger.
Users have also learned about Future from Volkswagon’s website, which links to a tool that Future developed to calculate the carbon impact and cost savings of switching to one of 400 electric vehicles. The calculator asks users to put in their license plate number so it can include local factors, like how clean the electricity is in the user’s state.
Switching to an electric vehicle is one of several eco-friendly lifestyle changes that the Future app recommends by looking at a user’s spending and lifestyle behaviors. The app, which also quantifies a user’s carbon footprint through its FutureScore, rewards users who adopt the recommended changes by awarding them FutureCoins. These coins can be redeemed for an initial starting value of $90 per coin.
“This is helping you make the transition to the sustainable economy without breaking the bank because a lot of folks right now are facing tight budgets and don’t necessarily have the opportunity to spend more on things that are sustainable,” Warnholz said.
