Meet the person you can build a climate startup with.

Someone whose ambition matches yours, who takes the work seriously, and who you trust to solve hard problems together. C2FM is how you find your co-founder — on purpose.

APPLY TO JOIN

$10/mo · curated membership

Most co-founder relationships start the same way. Luck.

Proximity. Timing. Whoever happened to be in the room. That's how most startups decide who to build with.

C2FM exists because that's not good enough.

Go from ‘climate startup curious’ to co-founding — on purpose.

C2FM is NYC's climate co-founder matching platform. A curated community of technical and non-technical operators, founders, and climate-serious professionals, brought together through intentional in-person experiences and online matching. All Access Membership starts at $10/mo.

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LEARN

Intimate breakfasts and dinners with operators, founders, and investors a few years — and a few hard lessons — ahead of you. The questions you haven’t thought to ask yet, answered by people who’ve already lived them. Flatten the curve before you start climbing it.

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MEET

Bi-monthly speed matching curated by C2FM’s algorithm across technical depth, domain focus, readiness, working style. By the time you walk in, the work of narrowing the field has already started. Plus, members get weekly curated match drops between events, so the matching doesn’t stop when the evening does.

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BUILD

Chemistry isn’t chemistry until you’ve actually worked together. Hackathons and casual build nights where matched pairs test real compatibility in action. Members get one place to track all their matches, plus a community Slack to post needs, trade resources, and stay in the work between events.Ready to see where you land in the matching process? Apply here →

UPCOMING EVENTS

You don't have to call yourself a founder yet.

C2FM is for people who are all-in on climate and ready to expand beyond who they already know.

The operator who keeps circling back to the same problem. The exited founder who's ready to go again. The researcher who's done working inside someone else's vision. The professional who has spent years in climate and is ready to build their own venture.

NYC has the talent. It's missing the infrastructure to connect it.

Every year, New York produces serious climate talent — researchers, operators, engineers — who can't find each other. C2FM is the infrastructure that changes that. The intentional moments where co-founder discovery begins on purpose, and the best climate companies start with the right decision: who to build with.

“[He] and I met and want to pursue this startup. Like I've never been more pumped to do anything.”

— C2FM member and participant of the GridTech Hackathon

18events hosted to date.
—members.
45%second meeting conversion rate.
04founding teams formed.

If you fund climate ecosystems, workforce development, or NYC's next generation of climate companies — we should talk.

email: hello@c2fm.network

Stop relying on chance to find your co-founder.

C2FM is for people who are serious about climate, feel the pull toward co-founding, and want to find out what's possible when they stop waiting for the right person to show up.

Membership is $10/mo and highly curated. You get weekly co-founder match drops, a dedicated member portal, private Slack community, and invitations to apply for every members-only event we host.

APPLY TODAY

Frequently Asked Questions

C2FM (Climate Co-Founder Matching) is NYC's climate co-founder matching platform. We drive climate startup formation through curated in-person events and an online portal powered by our proprietary founder matching algorithm. Every member is vetted, climate-serious, and ready to build.
C2FM is for climate-serious professionals in the NYC area — operators, founders, engineers, scientists, and domain experts who are all-in on climate and ready to find a co-founder. You can already have an idea, be actively building, or be exploring which problems in climate you want to solve. We started with the Columbia community and have expanded to include the broader NYC climate ecosystem.
Our matching algorithm weighs the intangibles — working style, values, decision-making, what you need in a partner — alongside skills and experience. Most platforms stop at the skills column, and we don't think that's enough to build a company with someone.We're also hyperlocal. C2FM is NYC-only because it's hard to vibe-check someone virtually, and we think a lot of the important signal comes from being in the same room. Our events are built around that.And we're climate-only. Climate change is urgent, and we want to make it easier for people who are serious about building in this space to find each other. Narrowing the focus to climate-serious founders in NYC means every person you meet through C2FM is already aligned on the things that matter most.
We're looking for climate-serious intent, relevant skills or domain experience, and readiness to build with someone. You don't need a polished pitch, a deck, or even an idea — but you do need to be genuinely planning to start a climate company, with the time and commitment to actually do it. We also pay close attention to the intangibles: how you work, what you value in a partner, and what kind of co-founder dynamic you're looking for. Skills are table stakes — fit is what makes a company actually work.
No. C2FM is intentionally built for both technical and non-technical builders — we match engineers and scientists with operators, commercial leads, and domain experts who bring complementary skills. But complementary skills alone don't make a great pair. Some of the strongest co-founder relationships we've seen are technical + non-technical and aligned on how they work, how they handle conflict, and what they want to build. We optimize for both.
C2FM is for founders and future founders — people whose plan is to start a climate company, even if they're not building one this month. Where you are in that journey shapes how you'll use the platform. Earlier-stage members get the most out of Learn events and browsing the portal while they sharpen their thinking. Members closer to actively building lean into speed matching and Build events. What we're not is a casual networking community — every member has founding intent.
Skills and experience are the starting point, not the whole picture. Building a company with someone is closer to marriage than hiring — you can have the perfect technical fit on paper and still fall apart six months in if your working styles, values, or risk tolerance don't align. C2FM is built around that reality. Our matching algorithm weighs the intangibles alongside the obvious stuff: how you make decisions, what you need in a partner, what dealbreakers you have, what kind of dynamic energizes you. Every member fills out a detailed profile, and our IRL events and weekly portal matches surface people who complement you across all of it — not just the skills column.
We host three types: Learn (intimate breakfasts and dinners with operators, founders, and investors a few years — and a few hard lessons — ahead of you), Meet (bi-monthly speed matching curated by C2FM's algorithm), and Build (hackathons and casual build nights where matched pairs test real chemistry in action, not conversation).
Co-founder discovery takes time — most members don't find their match at the first event or in their first batch of portal matches. The members who get the most out of C2FM treat it as a months-long process: showing up consistently, building relationships, and learning what they actually want in a co-founder along the way. Some members match within weeks; others take six months or more. The platform works best when you're patient and active.
We host a few public events throughout the year for people who want to get to know C2FM before applying — keep an eye on the events page. But almost all of our programming is members-only. To access the full slate of Learn, Meet, and Build events, you'll need to apply and be approved. Events are RSVP-based, so membership doesn't guarantee a spot at every event.
Membership is $10 a month. It keeps every C2FM event free to attend and gets you weekly curated match drops, members-only events, and access to our community Slack. As a member you can apply to any event, though we keep most of them small, so a seat isn't guaranteed.
No. C2FM is private and accessible only to approved members. Your profile is never shown publicly or to non-members.