Climate tech companies face a range of structural challenges to securing the mid stage investment needed to scale their solutions. The lack of capital at this stage prevents many viable, potentially transformative technologies from going mainstream and eliminating gigatons of emissions. That’s why we’ve been running a series of episodes on the Missing Middle in Climate Tech in partnership with Spring Lane Capital.

If you haven’t heard our previous three episodes in this series, check them out at investedinclimate.com, and if you have ideas of other topics that warrant a Deep Dive series please reach out through the contact form on our website. 

For the fourth episode in our series, I’m joined by Spring Lane Capital Co-Founder and Partner Rob Day who guest hosts the conversation with Blackhorn Ventures Managing Partner Melissa Cheong. 

On today’s episode, we cover:

• 2:23 – Introducing Blackhorn Ventures & Melissa Chong
• 3:31 – Melissa’s Path to Venture Capital & Impact Investing
• 8:44 – Surprises & Learnings in Venture Capital
• 10:13 – Overview of Blackhorn Ventures’ Investment Focus & Strategy
• 13:55 – Addressing the Missing Middle: Digital vs. Hardware Solutions
• 17:18 – Leveraging Accepted Hardware & Digital Solutions
• 19:09 – The Role of Vertical Data Pools in Construction and Energy
• 21:03 – AI, Utilities, and the Urgency for Digital Solutions
• 25:10 – Building Resilience & Anti-Fragile Mindsets in Climate Tech
• 28:14 – Exploring New Financing Instruments & Insurance
• 32:21 – Portfolio Example: Formic – Robotics as a Service
• 36:37 – Portfolio Example: King Energy – Solar for Multi-Tenant Properties
• 38:55 – Lessons from Community Solar & Smart Billing
• 40:00 – Takeaways: The Evolving Role of Venture Capital in Climate Impact
• 43:24 – Closing Remarks

Resources Mentioned

• Spring Lane Capital
• Blackhorn Ventures
• Formic
• King Energy

Connect with us

• Rob Day
• Melissa Cheong
• Jason Rissman

Keep up with Invested In Climate

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• Bluesky

Have feedback or ideas for future episodes, events, or partnerships?

Get in touch!