E702 | Lubomila Jordanova, Plan A: Climate Isn’t “Over”

The climate tech funding boom is officially over, but Lubomila Jordanova isn't mourning its death. The Plan A founder argues that the sector's painful maturation, from regulatory whiplash to investor fatigue, has finally separated real climate solutions from green-washed marketing stunts. For founders still building in this space, the new reality demands substance over spectacle.

Jordanova knows this shift intimately. Plan A, her carbon management platform, has navigated five years of dramatic market changes that would break most startups. "The space in which Plan A operates, a lot of complexity, arose just over the course of the last five years because there's a not so positive sequence of shift of events, change in legislation, absolute elimination of laws in certain countries, and finally, a lot of consumer led confusion about what sustainability really meant," Jordanova explains. This isn't the typical startup story of steady growth curves and predictable market expansion. Climate tech founders are building companies while the regulatory foundation shifts beneath them.

The regulatory chaos reflects deeper market confusion about what climate investing actually means. When governments eliminate environmental laws and consumers grow skeptical of sustainability claims, even legitimate climate companies face credibility issues by association. Jordanova's experience illustrates how external market forces can overwhelm internal execution, regardless of product quality or team strength. This volatility explains why climate startups now face much higher bars for demonstrating real impact and sustainable business models.

But Jordanova reserves her sharpest criticism for how the funding ecosystem treats visible female founders. Her organic rise to prominence, speaking at conferences and building thought leadership without paying for placement, backfired spectacularly with investors. "The visibility that we had as a company, which was absolutely organic. We never paid for a single speech that I had given, never paid for a single participation in a conference, beat me back and beat the company back by investors thinking that I'm a male female founder LinkedIn influencer," she reveals. The irony is stark: building genuine expertise and sharing it publicly, exactly what investors claim to want from founders, becomes a liability when you're a woman.

This bias compounds the already dismal funding statistics for diverse teams. Mixed-gender founding teams raised only 7% of venture capital, according to data Jordanova cites. The math here is brutal, female founders already face systemic disadvantages, and climate tech's increased scrutiny adds another layer of difficulty. When investors can dismiss substance as self-promotion, promising companies lose access to capital they need to scale climate solutions.

The combination of regulatory uncertainty and funding bias creates a perfect storm for climate companies led by women. They must navigate markets where the rules change constantly while convincing investors who may view their visibility as evidence against their seriousness. Jordanova's experience suggests that even successful climate entrepreneurs face punishment for the very activities that should demonstrate their market understanding and leadership capabilities.

What emerges from this conversation is a climate tech ecosystem in transition. The early enthusiasm has been replaced by hard questions about unit economics and regulatory stability. Companies that survive this shakeout will likely be stronger, but the process is eliminating promising solutions alongside obvious failures. For investors, this means developing better frameworks for evaluating climate companies beyond surface-level metrics. For founders, particularly women, it means building businesses robust enough to withstand both market volatility and systemic bias.

The climate crisis hasn't gone away while the investment climate cooled. If anything, the urgency has increased while the available capital has decreased. Jordanova's message is clear: the companies building real climate solutions need support now more than ever, even if that support looks different than the early flood of climate-themed venture capital. The founders who understand this new reality, and build accordingly, will define the next phase of climate innovation.