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BC BU S I N E S S .C A
N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 24 A d a m B l a s b e r g
T H E K I C K O F F : Barry Yates and
Amielle Lake were both seasoned
entrepreneurs working at the entre-
preneurship@UBC incubator when
Michael Carlson, a UBC PhD student,
walked through the door with an idea
for treating wastewater. "He was
watching the aftermath of the BP oil
spill and how they were planning to
treat it and saying it was never going
to work," says Yates of Carlson, who
wasn't available for an interview.
"Mike said he was going to go to the
lab at UBC and figure out how to treat
wastewater."
Yates, who had worked as an
executive with Vancouver companies
like Blast Radius and Monexa, and
Lake, who founded customer data
platform Tagga, were intrigued right
away. "We decided that he was awe-
some and that we wanted to start
this company with him," says Yates
with a smile.
A C T I O N P L A N : In 2019, Yates
brought in his long-time business
partner Bill Schonbrun and the four-
some went about enabling customers
to use CarboNet's advanced chemis-
try to treat wastewater at a reduced
cost and with 80 to 90 percent less
chemicals than are typically used
in treatment.
W I N N E R S
Barry Yates,
C O - F O U N D E R A N D C E O +
Amielle Lake,
C O - F O U N D E R A N D C C O +
Bill Schonbrun
C O - F O U N D E R A N D C O O +
Michael Carlson
C O - F O U N D E R A N D C T O ,
C A R B O N E T
"The industries we go after are
very traditional and not innovative,"
says Yates, explaining that Car-
boNet's product has applications in
sectors like construction, mining and
food and beverage, along with a cus-
tomer base that includes municipali-
ties and pharma companies, among
many other sectors.
"One of the things we've heard is
that in water treatment there's been
no innovation in decades; it's the
same stuff that was used 40 years
ago," he says. "But there's been a real
change in accepting the increased
importance on things that reduce
emissions and are better for the
planet. When we first started going
to market, all they asked was if it was
cheaper. And yes, it is. But over time,
it's become important that it's also
better for the planet."
Lake describes CarboNet's
interactions with its competitors as a
three-step process: "First, they ignore
us, they don't believe we're real. Then
they try to put us out of business,
drop their costs to starve us out.
Then, once we beat them, they want
to partner."
C L O S I N G S T A T E M E N T: This year,
East Vancouver-based CarboNet will
generate around US$15 million in rev-
enue, in its fourth year of being fully
commercial. It projects some US$22
million in revenue next year. The
company has around 50 employees.
"When we started it, we got some
pushback—'Why do you need all four
of you?'" says Yates. "But we really
thought the four of us would help us
