About the Role
C10 Labs is seeking experienced leaders across climate, sustainability, and environmental innovation to serve as mentors for AI Nexus NYC. Mentors will work directly with early-stage founders developing AI-enabled solutions, providing practical guidance, challenging assumptions, and helping startups navigate complex markets, customer relationships, regulations, financing, and commercialization pathways.
Responsibilities
- Advise founders on product strategy, business models, market positioning, and commercialization.
- Help startups identify their highest-value customer segments and use cases.
- Provide practical feedback on go-to-market strategy, pricing, partnerships, and customer acquisition.
- Challenge assumptions and help founders prioritize opportunities that create the greatest commercial and environmental value.
- Share lessons learned from building, operating, investing in, or scaling companies within climate and sustainability markets.
- Help founders understand how sustainability and climate-related purchasing decisions are made within large organizations.
- Introduce startups to potential customers, pilot partners, corporate sustainability teams, investors, and industry experts.
- Advise founders on navigating long enterprise sales cycles and complex stakeholder environments.
- Help companies design credible pilots and convert successful engagements into longer-term commercial relationships.
- Provide insight into procurement, implementation, and adoption within regulated or operationally complex industries.
- Help founders understand evolving industry trends, policies, regulations, reporting requirements, and market dynamics.
- Provide feedback on environmental impact claims, sustainability metrics, and customer value propositions.
- Support companies working through regulatory, technical, financial, or commercialization barriers.
- Help founders distinguish between compelling climate impact and a scalable venture-backed business model.
- Advise companies on how AI and data can create durable technical, operational, or commercial advantages.
- Help founders refine their fundraising strategy and investor positioning.
- Review pitch materials and provide feedback on how companies communicate their market opportunity, impact, traction, and differentiation.
- Introduce founders to relevant climate investors, strategic partners, family offices, corporate venture groups, or grant and non-dilutive funding resources.
- Help startups understand the milestones required to become institutionally investable.
- Support founders preparing for investor meetings, strategic partnership discussions, and diligence.
- Participate in mentor office hours, workshops, panels, founder meetings, and community events.
- Collaborate with other mentors, investors, operators, and C10 Labs team members.
- Contribute insights that strengthen AI Nexus NYC programming and founder support.
- Participate in Demo Day or investor-readiness activities.
Requirements
- Enjoy helping founders work through difficult and ambiguous problems.
- Bring practical operating, investing, technical, or market experience.
- Be candid, thoughtful, and constructive in feedback.
- Understand that strong mentorship involves challenging founders.
- Be curious about how AI can create new solutions across climate and sustainability markets.
- Want to help startups create measurable impact while building scalable and financially sustainable businesses.
Skills
- Climate Technology
- Corporate Sustainability
- Decarbonization
- Carbon Accounting and Carbon Management
- Carbon Markets
- Climate Finance
- Circular Economy
- Waste Reduction and Resource Recovery
- Sustainable Supply Chains
- Environmental Data and Analytics
- Climate Risk and Resilience
- Water and Natural Resource Management
- Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
- Green Buildings and Infrastructure
- Environmental Services
- ESG and Sustainability Reporting
- Clean Technology
- Nature-Based Solutions
- Climate Policy and Regulation
Location
- New York City, NY
Work Type
- Part Time
- Flexible
Experience Level
- Experienced founders, executives, investors, operators, researchers, and subject-matter experts
About the Company
- C10 Labs is an AI-native venture fund and venture platform that partners with exceptional founders to build and scale category-defining AI companies.
- Through AI Nexus NYC, C10 Labs brings together founders, investors, operators, researchers, corporate leaders, and industry experts to support the development and commercialization of high-potential AI startups.
Equal Opportunity
- C10 Labs welcomes mentors from diverse professional, academic, and industry backgrounds.
