Ones to watch: The Surprising Founders Changing Construction

In a sector dominated by tradition, these game-changers are tearing up the rule book, throwing it out of the top floor window, and in one case recycling it into concrete. 

Their journeys to discovery are as groundbreaking as the innovations they’re driving.

We think journalists at the best publications in the world would love to write profile pieces on these leaders. So let’s meet them…

Huade Tan, Plantd

Billowing smoke, flames, and tonnes of fuel burning every second. A force so big it sets a car alarm off ten miles away. Docking onto a vessel moving through space at 8 km per second. And then the hardest task of all: getting that vessel back to earth safely. 

That was Huade’s previous life before founding Plantd, the company making carbon negative panels from fast-growing grass. 

Huade worked at SpaceX for six years, initially as a thermal engineer and then as a Senior Life Systems Engineer, where he was responsible for developing and flying space vehicles such as Dragon 1, helping return NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). 

Plantd’s panels might just be smarter than rocket science. Used in wall sheathing and roof decking as a drop-in replacement for plywood, they’re simple to make, effective, and great for the planet. 

Grass is grown locally by former tobacco farmers, revitalising farmland across North Carolina and locking in carbon. Formaldehyde-free Resin is mixed in with some clever science. And that’s it. You now have a stronger, moisture resistant, carbon negative panel. Amongst other impressive stats, it saves up to 17 trees a house. 

With Huade at the helm, Plantd is set for the stars.

Oscar Hållén, CemVision

Oscar Hållén’s CV is more impressive than most companies’ entire executive boards. From penning speeches for the Swedish Prime Minister to steering billion-euro deals in private equity, navigating high-profile courtroom battles to acting as one of the world’s top General Counsels at Klarna, he certainly knows how to navigate a high pressure situation.

Now he’s taking on something even harder to crack: concrete.

Cement is the second most consumed substance on Earth after water and one of the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide. CemVision, the company Oscar co-founded, is on a mission to rewrite that equation.

Using industrial waste instead of limestone, renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, and smart manufacturing instead of outdated fire-belching kilns, CemVision is turning a carbon-heavy industry on its head and in the process creating stronger, greener, more affordable cement.

With backing from Polar Structure, Backing Minds and Zacua Ventures, Oscar isn’t just patching up the old world: he’s building a new one.

Aniruddha Sharma, Carbon Clean

Aniruddha Sharma and Prateek Bumb didn’t just stumble into carbon capture – they built Carbon Clean from the ground up after spotting a way to make the technology more efficient whilst studying together at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. 

Sharma, now CEO, also has a deeply personal reason for tackling industrial emissions – he grew up in Bhopal in the wake of a toxic gas leak from an insecticide plant in the city that killed thousands. This tragic event, one of the world’s worst industrial disasters, shaped and drove his determination to prevent history from repeating itself.

However, the duo struggled to secure funding in India, so they took their idea to Silicon Valley, winning over early investors before moving the business to London to tap into government support. 

Fast forward to today, and Carbon Clean has over 100 patents protecting its game-changing technology - a compact, modular system that helps heavy industries capture CO₂ directly at the source. The company has backing from the likes of Chevron, Aramco Ventures, and is scaling fast, working with major players like Petronas, BHP, and JSW Steel to make industrial carbon capture a mainstream reality.

Christian Gruener, VARM

This founder worked at a series of big companies, a list which includes Mercedes, Siemens, and KMPG. 

He then was selected from thousands of applicants to evaluate ideas for a venture in the climate-tech space. In his words, he got paid “to ideate on steroids”. Some of the best ideas from hundreds of software-based climate offsetting solutions were put in front of him. 

Christian Gruener decided to build something better. 

Founded in 2023, VARM recruits, trains and empowers local installers to run their own insulation companies. This scalable model allows them to tackle Europe's insulation needs head-on, in other words building the European Insulation Champion to help decarbonise the building sector faster and solve the blue-collar skills gap. 

They call it a “business-in-a-box solution”, providing installers with what they need to start their own firm, connecting them with homeowners to reduce their carbon footprint and improve energy efficiency.

Starting in Germany, where almost a fifth of CO₂ emissions are caused by residential heating, VARM is seeking to insulate one million homes in the next 10 years.