Portrait No. 001
Pauliina Meskanen
Co-Founder & CEO
Calectra
Raised — $2.7M
“The Earth may survive, but we humans may not.” The severity of the climate crisis truly hit me in 2018 during my exchange at Hokkaido University in Japan. In a Climate Change and Biodiversity course, we analyzed the IPCC’s latest report and the consequences of global warming. The scale of the challenge was dauting, but acting gave me agency. I set myself an ambitious goal: to cut 1 gigaton of CO2e before 2050. I turned to the most powerful tools that I knew; science and entrepreneurship. With a background in Industrial Engineering, experience as an early employee in a VC-backed startup, and later as a VC investor, I ultimately co-founded Calectra with Nate Weger to decarbonize one of the world’s largest emissions sources: industrial heat.
In her words
““The Earth may survive, but we humans may not.” The severity of the climate crisis truly hit me in 2018 during my exchange at Hokkaido University in Japan.”
Chapter I
The toughest challenges you've faced as a founder.
The toughest challenge on my founder journey has been moving alone to the US while building a VC-backed deeptech startup at the same time. Relocating to a new country comes with an enormous amount of administrative work: securing a visa, finding accommodation, opening bank accounts, arranging healthcare, getting a driver’s license, and handling taxes across two countries — all while fundraising and building complex hardware. Each of those is demanding on its own. Doing them simultaneously stretched me to my limits. I had to trust myself and keep moving forward. The resilient mindset has paid off. Calectra has raised $2.7M from VCs, the states of California and New York, Activate, US Bank Foundation, and the JLL Foundation, and secured an R&D agreement with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. We are building thermal battery technology to make up to 1600°C heating both cheaper and cleaner for heavy industries like cement and steel.
Chapter II
Your vision.
My vision is to help solve the climate crisis with science and entrepreneurship. Climate change affects our economies, health, and long-term security, yet some of its largest emission sources are still missing scalable solutions. Industrial heat alone accounts for around 20% of global CO₂ emissions, powered largely by fossil fuels in industries like cement and steel. At Calectra, we are decarbonizing industrial heat by converting low-cost renewable electricity into high-temperature heat with our thermal battery technology. By making clean heat the economically superior option, we enable manufacturers to cut emissions while strengthening their competitiveness. The lower cost will drive the adoption of our technology, just like it has done for solar and wind, the cheapest ways of making power today.
Chapter III
The impact you want to leave behind — for your industry, your community, and the women who come next.
Thirty years from now, I hope my legacy is helping create a new era of industrial heating, one that is cheaper, cleaner, safer, and more resilient. When we succeed, manufacturers won’t have to choose between profitability and sustainability; clean heat will be the obvious choice for them. I also hope to be a role model to encourage people to trust their intuition and bravely move towards their vision.