Yessica Klein
8 min read
09 November 2025
When Juanjo Mestre first explored sustainability in business, he was struck by a simple yet pervasive challenge: companies couldn’t easily measure or manage their environmental impact. The complexity of ESG data, from incomplete records to technical barriers, made sustainability more of a checkbox than a strategic advantage. He noticed that while sustainability reports were in demand, the infrastructure to support accurate, reliable non-financial data was practically nonexistent. That prompted him to ask a couple fundamental questions: How could businesses navigate ESG measurement without specialized staff? And how could environmental data be made both accessible and actionable across an entire organization, from the intern to the CEO?
Juanjo’s answer came in the form of Dcycle, the SaaS startup he co-founded with his childhood friends, Jacobo Umbert and Luis Escámez. The trio shut down their original marketplace, kept the tool they had built to assess environmental impact, and launched Dcycle in 2021. The platform is purpose-built for usability, designed to simplify carbon footprint tracking, life-cycle analysis and compliance checks so companies can embed sustainability into business decisions instead of using it to embellish surface reports. "We didn’t set out to start this company," Juanjo says. "We just focused on the real problem."
You mentioned the idea started with a different company. Can you walk us through the transition from marketplace to Dcycle?
We launched a marketplace to promote sustainable consumption. We thought we were building a commercial platform, but when we started asking vendors for data on their products’ environmental impact, we realized they had no infrastructure to provide it. That led us to develop a tool to assess non-financial impact. Once we launched that feature, we saw that clients cared more about that than the marketplace itself. So we pivoted completely.
How do you define what Dcycle offers today?
We call it a nonfinancial operating system. It’s not just a reporting tool; it's a platform that helps companies gather, govern and use non-financial data, and connect it to financial data. The core idea is flexibility. Most tools expect companies to adapt to them, but we think it should be the other way around. Our system is framework-agnostic and designed to adapt to how each company works.
That emphasis on reliability comes up a lot in data sourcing. Why is that so central?
Because it’s the real problem. Most ESG tools are focused on reporting, but what happens when generative AI can write the report? The only thing that will matter is the quality of the data behind it. If we don’t build systems for reliable ESG data now, those reports won’t mean anything in the future. Reliable data is the foundation of everything.
Has it been easy to stay motivated in a space that’s evolving so fast?
We love building hard things, so even when the market shifts or the regulations change, we stay focused on the problem. I think the key is to enjoy both the upsides and the downsides. That distance helps you learn. We’re serving around 2,000 companies today, but we want to reach 100,000. That means constant iteration.
“The bad part of working with friends is that you're always talking about work, even if you're in a disco at 5 AM. But it makes the journey softer, more fun, more enjoyable. And that’s actually what matters to me.”
How do you deal with stress and uncertainty?
I think every founder lives with anxiety. I just call it anxiety, not founder’s anxiety. It’s stressful, but I’d go mad doing anything else. What helps is knowing we’re not alone. We’re not the first generation of entrepreneurs in Spain. Those who came before us made mental health a topic we can talk about. That’s a big shift.
You mentioned you had a mentor. What role did that play in your journey?
Laura Urquizu, the CEO of Red Points, is one of my key mentors. She scaled her company from $1 million to $45 million in annual revenue. I go to her when I have difficult questions. But honestly, the whole Spanish ecosystem is supportive. It might be smaller than other countries, but it’s super connected. Founders here are open and willing to help. I’ve learned a lot from people I met at events or through mutual friends.
How do you see the entrepreneurial landscape evolving in Spain?
It’s incredibly dynamic. Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, Andalusia: there are accelerators and funds across the country. Maybe not all of them are huge, but they’re there. Spain is small and well-connected, so it’s easy to collaborate. And the social culture here makes us open to sharing knowledge and support.
What’s the best advice you’ve received so far?
Focus on the problem. Entrepreneurs are optimistic. We fall in love with our solutions. But the real value comes from understanding what’s broken and why. In our case, it wasn’t the carbon-footprint report that mattered; it was the unreliable data behind it.
“Don Quixote is the real entrepreneurial journey. It’s scary, but it shows more about humanity than we think.”