Powering Unravel Carbon’s Japan Entry with Gradient’s Accelerator 100
The Challenge
Unravel Carbon, a fast-growing AI startup backed by Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator, has aggressive growth targets typical of a venture-backed company. With a bold mission to help enterprises reduce their carbon footprint, they offer an AI-powered software solution that enables companies to measure, manage, and reduce their Scope 1, 2, and 3 supply chain emissions.
The company was selected for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Green Transformation (GX) Market Entry Support Program, recognizing its innovative approach to enterprise decarbonization and long-term commitment to Japan.
Japan was a priority market. But like many international startups entering the country, Unravel Carbon faced a common challenge: how to accelerate meaningful conversations with enterprise buyers and government stakeholders. While they had some relationships in Japan, they didn’t have deep connections with the individuals and teams responsible for buying AI or startup solutions inside large Japanese organizations.
That’s where Gradient Consulting came in. We were introduced through Amasia, a venture capital firm backing Unravel Carbon, who recommended me as a trusted Go-to-Market (GTM) advisor with on-the-ground Japan experience.
My Approach
Thanks to the warm investor intro, things moved quickly. Within 30 days of a first casual coffee meeting with one of the cofounders at a Starbucks in Tokyo, we had officially kicked off our engagement.
The scope was simple and clearly defined: reach out to 100 qualified Japanese organizations in my network and set up meetings with senior decision-makers responsible for innovation, digital, or sustainability initiatives. I now refer to this offering as Accelerator 100. My contacts at these companies are English-speaking, which helps make communication smoother across the startup team—from founders to product and commercial leads.
A key part of the strategy was leveraging relationships with Innovation, New Business, and Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) teams inside large Japanese corporates. These teams are often your best entry point into the Japanese enterprise ecosystem. From the perspective of a foreign startup, these teams — Innovation, New Business, and CVC — are unique. Their job is literally to talk to startups. They’re incentivized to learn about startup technologies, which makes them more accessible and more curious than other groups inside the company. You can co-create value with them, and your incentives are often aligned: they are motivated to find external innovation, and you're looking to break in.
The key metric of success for my work is ultimately revenue and ROI for the startup. But leading indicators include the number of meetings set, the stakeholders involved and quality of conversations, NDAs signed, and how many progressed to proof-of-concept (POC) discussions.
The Results
Fast Initial Traction
From the first 18 companies I prospected in March, we secured 8 meetings within three months—a 44% conversion rate from outreach to qualified meetings. While three of those meetings were set quickly, the other five required follow-up conversations to clarify value and build interest. In several cases where the initial answer was “no”, I was able to re-engage and move the conversation forward by differentiating Unravel Carbon’s AI-based approach from legacy carbon tracking tools.
These meetings spanned a wide range of strategic industries, including: consulting, construction, trading companies, systems integrators, manufacturing, real estate, banking, FMCG, and government.
As of now, we have three likely POCs with several others being actively discussed. One of the three has received a verbal agreement to kick off shortly.
Driving Deeper Engagement
To complement the outreach efforts, I proposed and supported two high-impact executive dinner events. These gatherings were designed to foster deeper, trust-based conversations in a more intimate setting—with curated guest lists of executives from high-priority companies. I helped drive a large part of the attendance by leveraging my personal network, securing participation from influential decision-makers.
One participant from a large Japanese company who I invited shared with me afterwards:
“I really enjoyed the dinner, but what stood out most was how energizing the conversations were. It’s rare to be in a room where everyone is so actively engaged and open to exchanging ideas. I see real potential for AI in data management and hope we can continue the dialogue.”
Looking Ahead
This early-stage work with Unravel Carbon reflects the power of a focused, relationship-driven approach to entering the Japanese market. It also highlights the value of pairing global innovation with local execution through a trusted GTM advisor. I'm proud to support mission-driven startups like Unravel Carbon and excited to see what’s ahead in their Japan journey.
"Gradient has helped facilitate some of our earliest enterprise conversations and provided a strong foundation and quick start into a new country like Japan where the business norms and expectations are different from the rest of our other markets. We look forward to charting our long-term growth here."
— Grace Sai, Cofounder & CEO
Unravel Carbon