In our founder interview series, we skip the slide decks and dive into the sparks, doubts, and pivots that shape early-stage ventures.
Spotlight on: Tea Bano – Co-Founder & CEO of TreeScatter.
Engineer by training, climate-tech communicator by choice, Tea is building “Google Maps for forests”—high-resolution digital twins that give every tree a data profile. In this quick chat she unpacks why forests are the most under-served tech frontier, how GeoAI can replace tape-measure inventories, and what really happens when you jump off a train to pitch an investor face-to-face.
Can you introduce yourself and TreeScatter?
I’m Tea, co-founder of TreeScatter. At TreeScatter we’re building the intelligence infrastructure for forests. Think Google Maps, but for forests, where you can see each and every tree with metrics for each one of them.
Why tackle forestry and GeoAI?
I’ve read a lot about the problems related to climate change and forests in Europe. There’s just so much to be done.
We were interviewing two forestry engineers and learned that trees are still inventoried manually—people go out with tape measures. We were like, what? That can’t be right. So we said, we have to do something about it.
Plus, every career decision I’ve made was about climate change or sustainability. Forests are one of the most underserved sectors technologically. I love tech and science, so it felt like an amazing opportunity to bring technology to this space.
Biggest “oh sh*t” moment?
About a year ago we were struggling to get customer interviews. We sent a cold email blast saying, ‘Everything’s done, perfectly working—do you want it?’ as a crash test.
The results were, oh… we’ve got it all wrong. Our assumptions about the market and the need were completely off. We stopped and pivoted.
Funniest or weirdest pitch experience?
There were several ones. So one of them was, having people after a pitch come and say, “I want to work for you for free.” And I’m like, what? You know, you just met me literally five minutes ago and now you made a decision to come and work for me for free?
Another time I was on a train and very near to Frankfurt and I see this post on LinkedIn from an investor that I really wanted to speak with who was going to be at a fair about two or three hours north of Frankfurt. So I just decided to get out of the train and I went to meet him where he was which was at this fair, that was totally unrelated to TreeScatter. So I managed to get a meeting with him and he asked “why are you even here” and I asked, you want the politically correct answer or do you want the honest answer? He said, well, honest, of course! And I admitted that I kind of stalked him. He was surprised, but I got the meeting!
Small moments that keep you going?
We showed the first MVP to two people who inspired our pivot. They said, ‘This is exactly what we were talking about.’ Seeing customers smile and say, ‘This is what we need,’ after months of struggle—that’s the moment you know you’re on the right path.
And I really like the moments when I forget my name and my birthday and I’m so full into it.
What about advice you would have loved to receive earlier?
Find more people that have the same ambitions and needs and wants in life and surround myself by those people because at the end, community is so important! People who understand your struggles, who understand what you’re trying to do, who also dream big and want to solve big problems.
Because when you are not in that right environment you just feel like a misfit and that is just such a waste.
Startup myth you’d like to debunk?
That ‘the others have it all figured out.’ No matter where people are on the journey, everyone is trying to figure it out.
Your founder super-powers?
I would say that I’m very good at investigative work. Meaning I am trying to understand the background of people, where people are coming from, to have the clues and the information I need. I want to know it all! I want to know the the stuff that is not going in press, you know, the hidden thing.
So yeah, I think it’s related to curiosity, but taken to another level.
Describe your co-founder in one word
Smart. I always say that I’m lucky to have a very smart co-founder.
Most over-used startup word right now
FOMO. Investors talk about creating FOMO all the time. Fear isn’t how the best decisions are made.
One piece of fundraising advice?
In general people tend to like people who resemble them. So very often, if you have an investor who has a very strong technical background, well they will bias positively engineers and people who have strong technical background.
Also look for people who are looking for you. People who you don’t need to convince or are already halfway there. You just need to take them to the final point.