Another ClimateTech Podcast

This inverview is the 25th and final episode of my podcast Sound Funding, where I've been interviewing impact fund managers together with Impact Europe since 2020. If you're interested in impact funds, I highly recommend checking out the back catalogue!

Impact Europe's podcast host Benjamin DeVries interviewed me about my background as a founder, how I became a climatetech investor, why I started podcasting, and what I think about McKinsey (👎)  and spicy chicken wings (👍).

Check out the back catalogue of my interviews with impact fund managers at Sound Funding.

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

Remember in the mid 2010s when we were all talking about microplastics in things like face creams, and brands were making a big deal about being micro-bead free? Well although the media attention has gone away, the problem of microplastics has definitely not. Adam Root is the founder and CEO of Matter., which is tackling the problem of microplastics head on at one if its key sources—your washing machine.

Matter. has just raised $10 million, with participation from big names like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher, and the Walton family (Walmart) through their various investment vehicles.

#climatetech #microplastics #laundry #cleanwater #plasticfree

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

Jason Goodhand is an old classmate and pal, and a fellow traveller in renewable energy before it was cool. He's been fascinated by the role energy storage has in greening the grid for as long as I've known him. These days, he's travelling the world discovering, developing, and implementing storage technologies based on hydrogen, sodium, zinc, iron, vanadium redox flow technologies. He talks about the road ahead and what he's learned as a 20+ year industry veteran.

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

Bruce Friedrich is the founder and president of the Good Food Institute and the reason I invest in alternative proteins. I was driving through the hills of Umbria listening to podcasts and an interview with Bruce came on. An hour later I was enthralled and had found my calling. It really was as simple as that. 

I talked with Bruce about the outlook for investment in alt proteins, the nature of the industry, why it's so crucial to the fight against climate change, and how he is able to keep his cool with all the trolls out there. And finally got to thank him for being such a major influence in my life.

#altproteins #climatechange #climatetech #futurefood #foodtech

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

Fungi is having a moment as it does everything from open our minds, feed our population, pass notes for our trees, capture our CO2, and clean up our messes. Nathan Paumier is a fungi nerd and writer of the popular and informative BRB newsletter.  I took advantage of having him on the show to ask everything I always wanted to know about mushrooms but was afraid to ask.

Nathan's go-to book to learn about fungi is Entangled Life by Merlin Seheldrake. 

#fungi #climatetech #climatechange #bioremediation #mushrooms

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

Will Wiseman is a Forbes 30 under 30 founder who’s on a mission to democratise investing in renewable energy. He co-founded Climatize, which allows people to invest as little as five bucks, just two years ago and it’s going well. We talked about how Will got started, his experiences abroad in Europe, and the role of microloans in electrifying the grid.

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

I was flattered when Silas Mähner and Somil Aggarwal reached out to invite me onto The CleanTechies Podcast out of New York. In the end we decided to do something fun and interview each other and syndicate the episode across both our podcasts at the same time. Fun times! 

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

Stuart Goldsmith is one of the only people out there who can make me LOL about climate change. I caught his act on YouTube thanks to "the Algorithm" and was thrilled that he said yes when I invited him on the podcast. Especially since he's in front of slightly larger audiences like the Conan O'Brien Show and Wembley Arena. This episode has some important insights nested in some good laughs.

Check out Stuart's website and Instagram.

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

Susanne Glørsen is a renowned early-stage sustainability investor who took her fascination with the potential of fungi to the next level: she created an award, called the Future Is Fungi. In this episode, Susanne talks about the award and introduces us to the inaugural winners including the bioremediation company novobiom, as well as Oona Snoeyenbos-West, whose company MycoMine solves the "forever chemical" quandary through mycelium cleanup, and Jens Laurids Sørensen, Associate Professor at Aalborg University who is making batteries out of fungi.

I know a thing or two about fungi (except how to pronounce it) but was blown away by some of these innovative applications. I can also recommend the book that Oona mentions in the episode: Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

If you've ever found yourself looking for a job in the foodtech sector, chances are you've come across the name Emma Osborne. Once a traditional executive recruiter, Emma threw that overboard to focus only on matching talent with roles that are aligned with her own values. Today, in addition to her talent matching work, she is at the centre of some major campaigns like "50 x 25", which aims to see 50% plant-based menu items in the UK by 2025.

👨‍💻 Hiring developers? You need to look at Ukraine, where I've been hiring exclusively since 2018. Set up a no-stress needs assessment at wild.codes/climate. Podcast listeners get $1k off their first hire.

🧑‍💼 Growing your team across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate