Start-up co-founded by Mike Hanrahan acquired for $100m

Sustain.Life, which has around a fifth of its workforce in Ireland, is a software company that lets companies and organisations account for their environmental impact, which is becoming increasingly regulated internationally.

It has been acquired by Workviva, a $4bn US-based software platform that covers financial reporting, auditing, environmental-social-and-governance (ESG) and other metrics.

Mr Hanrahan, who founded Sustain.Life with CEO Annalee Bloomfield, Alyssa Rade and Patrick Campangao, is a former co-founder of the e-commerce company Jet.com, which was sold to Walmart for $3.3bn in 2016.

He was also a co-founder of Genetx Biotherapeutics, which was acquired by Ultragenyx for $75m (€69.8m) in 2022.

Tapestry VC, run by Irish managing partner Patrick Murphy, was one of the lead investors in Sustain.Life, which is being rebranded as Workviva Carbon.

“Since we started Sustain.Life just over three years ago, the landscape of sustainability has evolved significantly,” said CEO Ms Bloomfield.

”Governments worldwide have introduced new laws, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), SEC’s climate disclosure rules, and California’s Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) and Climate-Related Financial Risk Act (SB 261) in the last year alone. Concurrently, thousands of companies have voluntarily established reduction targets, incorporating net-zero policies and implementation into their broader operational strategy and financial planning.”

The move is described as a healthy return for Tapestry VC, co-founded by Patrick Murphy, which was the start-up’s first institutional investor and jointly led its seed round in 2022.

“A lot of companies in this space focus on consulting, but from day one, this one wanted to build a software solution,” said Mr Murphy.

”That helped them differentiate and creat the best solution. By being part of such a big company now, it wil help them magnify the impact they have in dealing with a lot of the regulations in Europe and especially the US, where disclosures around this stuff can be quite partisan.”