Purpose-led businesses seem to be the latest craze when it comes to booming entrepreneurial trends, and it doesn’t look like the push for sustainability is slowing down anytime soon – especially in the UK.
At least, that’s the view of Rachel Delacour, founder and chief executive of carbon and ESG data tracking platform Sweep, who managed to secure her first eight-figure acquisition by the age of 36.
In just under six years, the French entrepreneur started, scaled, and sold her first cloud computing business, BIME Analytics, to software management firm Zendesk for $45m (£36m).
“To be honest with you, I didn’t expect to make money for myself,” Delacour laughs, looking back on how fast her first business unexpectedly grew.
Indeed, it all happened to a very loose – yet successful – plan. The financial freedom that followed, however, left Delacour, now 44, thinking what on earth (literally) she would do next.
“For many of us, financial freedom is enough. I totally understand that. But for me, it’s not my personal driver,” she says.
She came up with the idea of holding some of the world’s largest companies accountable for their carbon footprints during her studies at International Space University in 2019.
“Space doesn’t want us,” Delacour says, waning from her long-held aspirations of becoming an astronaut. “We need to fix the earth first.”
Launching Sweep in 2020 brought on a wave of new business challenges, Delacour says, as the entrepreneurial landscape is forever changing. However, she tells me having to convince companies they needed to change (again) was one of the hardest.
These companies had to undergo digital transformation just 15 years ago.
Rachel Delacour
“It was a significant step for them. But to survive and thrive in the low carbon economy, they must do so again.”
Luckily, by the time Delacour realised her next career move wouldn’t involve stepping foot on the moon anytime soon, she had the network, knowledge, and cash to try this new venture.
Why sustainability in the UK?
Delacour launched Sweep in the UK in 2022, a move she believes will spring her now 130-person team into the future of their success.
In fact, B Lab Global numbers show there are more than 6,000 B Corp certified companies in over 80 countries and 150 industries worldwide – and the UK seems to be leading the way with innovative efforts in the clean climate tech space.
“The French are known for being pretty arrogant, but even we don’t believe that we alone can solve climate change,” Delacour says.
“The UK is the perfect arena for us as it falls outside of the EU and has different regulatory and compliance requirements when it comes to sustainability.”
Now working with well-known brands like Blackrock, Lacoste and L’Oreal, Delacour tells me her focus remains “one part of the world at a time”.
She adds: “That will help us scale and ensure we have an impact wherever we land.”
So, how does the entrepreneur do it?
Although Delacour’s journey seems bright, scaling a business is never going to be a simple overnight game.
“As an entrepreneur, whether now or in the past, your main goal is survival,” Delacour says, and that means finding the right balance of people and community to help make it work.
“Sometimes I think that I know more of my co-founders than my close family,” she adds.
Delacour says that having the right founding team will help you succeed in any new venture, but it’s the focus on sustainability that will always set you apart, even within the 9-5 corporate world.
“The ones who are able to talk sustainability in a company will be the ones who will become the CEO, and I’m sure of it,” she says.
With advisory firm Forrester research suggesting that some 80 per cent of European consumers now take environmental factors into consideration, you could say Delacour is setting the Sweep team up for even more continued success – streamlining the process all in one place.
CV
Name: Rachel Delacour
Company: Sweep
Founded: 2020
Staff: 130
Title: Co-Founder and CEO
Age: 44
Born: Pont-Audemer, France
Lives: Between Hossegor & Paris, France
Studied: BSc Finance, KEDGE Business School, International Space University
Talents: Cocktail-making
Motto: I have two personal mottos:
-“On est jamais mieux servi que par soi meme” = “if you want something done right, do it yourself.”
-“la valeur n’attend point le nombre des années” = “value does not depend on how old you are.”
Most known for: Being a serial entrepreneur. I co-founded BIME Analytics, which was a pioneer in SaaS Cloud Business Intelligence, and in 2015 it was acquired by Zendesk. I then started Sweep in 2020 to help companies track, analyse and act on their sustainability data, using business intelligence principles.
First ambition: When I was little, I really admired Calamity Jane and wanted to be an adventurer, like her
Favourite book: “It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy At Work” &”Getting Real” – all the books by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. I find their way of thinking about how businesses should be run, and how we should live our lives, very inspiring.