Welow
CEO & Co-founder
AI for Product Life-Cycle Assessment startup — automating carbon footprint calculations for retail, from founding through acquisition by Greenly.
Welow
AI startup automating carbon footprint and life-cycle assessment for retail products and purchases, for retailers, e-commerce platforms and banks. Methodology based on the EU PEF framework with 16 ecological indicators. Business model: pricing per product scored.
// Key Metrics
// Mission
Welow was born from the conviction that carbon footprint calculations for retail products should not require months of manual consulting work. We built AI models and APIs to perform product Life-Cycle Assessments at scale using the EU's Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology, covering 16 ecological indicators across the full product lifecycle — from raw materials through disposal.
The platform served two main use cases: banks and payment providers showing the carbon footprint of purchases to their customers, and e-commerce platforms displaying environmental scores (A to E) on product pages.
// Achievements
- From founding to acquisition: Co-founded and ran the company from inception to its acquisition by Greenly, reaching 500K EUR ARR and delivering 10 projects with retailers and banks.
- 1M products scored in 3 months: Delivered the first environmental score for tooling products for ManoMano, the French DIY marketplace unicorn, using in-house algorithms, APIs and models that compensate for poor seller data quality.
- Funding: Raised a 500K EUR seed round from business angels and VCs, and secured 1M EUR within a 10M EUR Bpifrance-funded consortium with industrial groups. The service was integrated by API into payment equipment, with revenue share on each payment.
- Team and business model: Built a team of 10 from scratch, with pricing per product scored.
// Tech & Product Impact
Welow was the purest expression of my dual passion for AI and sustainability. Building an AI product from scratch, finding product-market fit with retailers and banks, and taking the company to acquisition taught me more about product-led growth and tech for sustainability than any other experience.