Fika with Georgie Steel at climate AI firm Maiven: "Put products in front of customers sooner"

Your company announced funding last week from heavyweight impact investors Pale Blue Dot and Ada Ventures. Has the news sunk in yet?

"We actually got the funding back in November but chose to announce it this month in tandem with our partnership with Climate Impact Partners [a global organisation that helps organisations to offset the emissions]. But the whole funding journey has been really awesome. We were very fortunate that we had quite a lot of interest, and so we could really make sure that we picked people who we could see ourselves working with in the long term."

For people who missed the news, give us your quick elevator pitch on what Maiven does?

"We help companies navigate climate policies. In the last 15 years, on average, companies have had to deal with 54 new policies each year. So we use AI to combine company data with policy data to give timely and personalised insights on what policies are important for your company, what the implications are for your company, and how you can capture any opportunities or mitigate any risks."

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How do you unwind after an intense day at work?

"Generally after work I love to do sports. I also do Parkruns [free community-organised 5km runs] at weekends, and there's a couple of people in the team who also love Parkruns. As we speak I’m actually at home, technically off sick. If I wasn't ill, I'd love to go and catch up with the team and have a proper team celebration!"

You seem like a busy person. You’re also a UK delegate for UN Women UK, which is focussed on changing the way the world works for women from a British perspective. How did you get involved in that?

"I've been attending the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, one of the UN’s biggest conferences, for three years. Anyone can apply to be a delegate. My role there is to sit, listen, and try to understand different countries’ perspectives, and hear what other people are doing to help gender equality. Then I put in a set of recommendations for the UK at the end of the conference. I have also worked with the UN on a project on online safety, helping from a software perspective."

You and your cofounder, CEO Larsen Mabika, met while working at Sylvera, a carbon data and climate action technology company. How do you complement each other as founders?

"Larsen's background is on the product management financial side, and mine is much more on the technical engineering side. I think because we're covering different areas, we are very complimentary. I also think he’s very good at thinking ‘big picture’ and ‘big vision’, and I'm much better at the details: ‘how do we break that down to deliver something today’. So I think in that respect our skill set is very complimentary."

Formula 1 is also on your resume, since you worked in a fast-paced role at McLaren Racing. How has working with racing cars shaped who you are today?

"It shaped me a lot in terms of helping me kickstart my way into software. I was a structural design engineer there when I started. On top of that, how to create a good team dynamic is obviously crucial when you're working in a sports team, so I learnt from that too."

Dorothy Chou, a partner at Ada Ventures – one of Maiven’s investors – met you on a panel for Women who Build, a British initiative designed to connect female students and startups. What are your top tips for being an engaging panelist?

"I think really just being yourself. I know that sounds so cliché, but I think a lot of people – before they go and do any sort of public speaking – they're kind of concerned, thinking ‘what if I don't have anything important or interesting enough to contribute?’ Everyone's perspectives are unique, and so people can get a lot of value from that."

Do you have any other advice for entrepreneurs with a science background who are looking for funding in 2025?

"We're in a really interesting space at the moment where productivity and efficiency is skyrocketing with all of the newly available AI tools. And so I’d say use these to make your development much faster, and put products in front of customers sooner. It is really important to be able to show that people are interested in what you're building, and therefore get those early signs of traction that you can then show to investors, to show why your product is important."

What is your favourite ‘fika’?

"I love tea a lot! I'm a little bit of a stereotypical English person, to the point where my team has bought me this giant mug, because otherwise I get up too often to get more tea! Peppermint tea is my tea of choice. I'm also trying to find the best croissant in London at the moment. But that’s going to take more than one 15 minute break!"