The end of ESG(rid) story
Startup Day pitching contest winner, who raised €1.4 million, closes down after 2.5 years
TALLINN - Estonian value chain management startup Esgrid said it will close down after two and a half years.
Esgrid, which launched at the peak of ESG interest in late 2023, won a pitching competition at Startup Day in Tartu and raised some €1.4 million from investors like 2C Ventures.
“When the sustainability market collapsed in 2025, we didn’t fold. We pivoted. Then pivoted again. Kept fighting until it genuinely stopped making sense - and decided to stop with 6 months of runway still in the bank,” co-founder and CEO Oksana Tolmatshova said on LinkedIn. ”In the end, we knew we'd done something right when customers asked what it would take for us to continue, and investors asked to call should we build something new.”
”To every founder still fighting every day - you're a hero by default. Even if it doesn't end the way you planned,” Tolmatshova wrote.
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