On Today's Episode:

In today's climate-conscious landscape, addressing global climate change is not just a mission but an urgent necessity. Paul Straub, through Wireframe Ventures, is actively confronting this issue. He's channeling investments into early-stage companies focusing on technologies that can both mitigate and adapt to the challenges of climate change. This includes novel solutions for decarbonizing our economy, helping societies acclimatize to shifting climates, and actively pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. By offering seed funding, mentoring, fostering industry connections, and aiding in recruitment, Paul is ensuring these startups are primed for success.

Paul Straub is the Managing Director of Wireframe Ventures and has positioned himself at the forefront of the fight against climate change. A seasoned investor, Paul is leveraging his expertise by focusing on "climate tech" — a term he stresses is more of a broad theme than a restricted sector. Drawing parallels between the emergence of the internet in the 90s and today's climate tech, he believes these innovations will soon permeate every aspect of society. Paul champions a collaborative approach, partnering closely with founders, guiding them through the complex world of startups, and introducing them to invaluable networks and potential clients.

The conversation with Paul offers invaluable insights into the world of climate tech investing. Addressing the challenges and opportunities in the sector, he discusses the long timelines associated with climate tech development, often spanning a decade or more. This underscores the importance of perseverance, mission-driven resilience, and adaptability. In a market that's rapidly evolving, Paul emphasizes the need to build sustainable businesses underpinned by robust performance metrics and not just fleeting hype. His comparison of the burgeoning climate tech industry to the internet's nascence in the 90s is particularly evocative, suggesting not just its potential impact, but its inevitable integration into the fabric of society.

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/

On Today's Episode:

Tune in to an enlightening dialogue with Elena Foukes as she hosts Tommy Leep, the visionary founding partner of Jetstream. This climate tech fund is dedicated to supporting software startups that are shaping our sustainable economy.

You'll learn about Tommy's extensive background in tech and venture capital, and his transition into the climate tech sphere. He shares insights about the critical role of climate change and how it necessitated a shift in his investment strategy to empower burgeoning enterprises in the climate tech industry.

Tommy also explores the key technological advancements propelling climate tech: the spread of sensor technology, the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in data analysis, and the drop in the cost of robotics.

Discover fascinating real-world applications of AI in the climate tech sector, such as AI-powered analysis of satellite imagery for carbon emissions tracking, and the use of computer vision in refining recycling processes.

Lastly, Tommy delves into the potential held by the convergence of software and climate tech, emphasizing its significance for investors and the future of our planet.

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/

On Today's Episode:

In this special episode, our Executive Producer, Nico Johnson, takes the helm as a guest host. The conversation is with Devin Hampton, CEO of UtilityAPI, a service transforming the energy industry by making utility customer bill and interval data accessible & useful. Devin explains the complexities of developing a platform that ensures safe and secure data sharing among various energy stakeholders, as well as what it was like becoming the CEO of a revenue-positive climate tech startup and taking it through the next round of funding.

Devin and Nico discuss many elements of his coming of age as a climate tech executive, not the least of which is the experience of leading a funding round, particularly as a person of color, during this recent economic downturn.  His perspectives are insightful, emphasizing how he specifically defines 'impact' and the importance of selecting the right investors for scaling any business. Devin is transparent about his personal experiences, shedding light on the unique challenges and victories he's navigated. Among the many gems shared, one especially bright moment is how he helped unlock additional equity earmarked specifically for diverse new talent, with a vision to help them participate in the wealth-creation that tech startups can often create for early shareholders.  He also discusses his top picks for climate tech investments right now, giving us all a few more climate tech leaders and companies to add to our Twitter feeds!

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/

On Today's Episode:

Christine Boyle, Partner at Burnt Island Ventures

Founder and CEO of Valor Water, a venture backed water tech/data company that exited after 5 years to a big corporate. 

We discuss:

• Hacking procurement timelines were part of the entrepreneurial journey
• Water is more than utilities, ag, data centers, 
• Become an insider in the sector, conference circuit and joining groups/orgs/committtees
• Raising capital in the utility space
• What it’s like to get acquired
• Imagine H2O - https://www.imagineh2o.org/
• Don’t be a jerk  - even when you’re stressed or anxious
• Life in China
• Dam removal & water use for the Klamath River
• What Burnt Island Ventures is looking for in potential portfolio companies
• 2 consumer water technologies that you can get NOW:
• Spout - Getting water from air on your countertop - https://www.spoutwater.com/
• Beagle - Water security and plumbing - https://www.beagleservices.com/

Join us to learn more about exiting the world of water tech.

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/

On Today's Episode:

This week we have the founders of Enduring Planet: Dimitry Gershenson, CEO Erin Davis, COO

Enduring Planet offers revenue based and grant based debt to climatetech companies.

VC funding is only one type of funding for a climate startup, and we extensively talk about the different funding available and the pros and cons of each type. 

In this episode, we talk about:

• Family and ruthless prioritization as founders, intentional culture
• Venture vs grants vs debt
• Diversity Equity Inclusion and Justice
• The journey from international development to founding a US based startup

As referenced in the episode, here are some resources that we can highlight around JEDI/gender lens investing:

• Morgan Stanley: https://www.morganstanley.com/articles/gender-diversity
• CFA Institute: https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2021/02/23/beyond-intention-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-require-action/
• Kapor Capital's framework for Equity-lens investing: https://www.kaporcapital.com/how-we-invest/
• Calvert Capital: https://calvertimpact.org/resources/investing-with-a-gender-lens
• 2X Global: https://www.2xglobal.org/new-to-gender-lens-investing
• Mission Investors Exchange: https://missioninvestors.org/resources/examining-existing-and-potential-investments-racial-equity-lens

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/

On Today's Episode:

Alex Wright-Gladstein is the founder and CEO of Sphere, a fossil free 401(k) provider. 

Sphere offers a low-cost fossil free fund and supports employees at companies so that a fossil free investment option is available for retirement. 

With recent changes, companies are required to include the carbon impact of retirement funds in a company’s carbon calculations, which is great news for Sphere, and the planet.

Alex became interested in climate because of her 7th grade science teacher, and held fundraisers to save the rainforest in high school. As she continued to work in climate, she realized that climate solutions are also win-win solutions for people, companies, and the planet.

Are you ready to have a fossil free 401(k)? Check out https://www.oursphere.org/ for copy/paste templates to engage with your company.

Shout outs to:

• Ayer Labs
• Tufts
• MIT: labs and Sloan School of Business
• DARPA
• Founders Fund
• All We Can Save - the book
• Watt It Takes with Emily Kirsh, with guest LEAH ELLIS of SUBLIME SYSTEMS: https://www.powerhouse.fund/leah

We also talk about:

• Staying grounded
• How most ESG funds are a way for financial institutions to still make bank with fees, since consumers are moving away from traditional funds with high fees, and instead are choosing low-cost, same return funds.
• The fundraising process
• Staying resilient during the fundraising process

https://www.oursphere.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwrightgladstein/

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/

On Today's Episode:

Elena Foukes welcomes Brittany Chibe and Anne Palermo, who discuss their company, Aqua Cultured Foods, which focuses on creating fermentation-enabled whole cuts of seafood alternatives. Anne Palermo, the CEO and co-founder of Aqua Cultured Foods, has a background in finance but was always passionate about health and wellness. She decided to learn food science, food tech, and culinary innovation to pursue her dream of starting her own company. She started with a CPG business focused on clean and healthy snacking, but later shifted her attention to alternative proteins and the minimal processing of fermentation-enabled proteins. Brittany Chibe is the co-founder and chief growth officer of Aqua Cultured Foods with 15 years of experience in the food industry. She joined Aqua Cultured Foods in 2022. 

Aqua's mission is to address the challenges of the insecure seafood supply chain caused by climate change and overfishing. With about 90% of wild fisheries overfished and a growing global demand for seafood, Aqua Cultured Foods aims to provide sustainable and affordable seafood alternatives that replicate the taste, texture, and nutrition of traditional seafood. By focusing on flexitarian consumers who already consume seafood, Aqua Cultured Foods aims to offer a product that closely matches the experience of eating seafood, thus encouraging mass adoption of alternative proteins.

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/

On Today's Episode:

Grant is Founder and CEO of Mast Reforestation. Mast Reforestation focuses on solving the problem faced by land managers and owners after wildfires, including seed acquisition, seedling growth, transportation, and carbon credit registration and sale. 

We also cover his career, and journey to Mast. He is a repeat founder and took Mast through Techstars and several high-profile people have invested. 

For him “Climate Change is the problem that all of their issues report to.”

He shares his experiences and career trajectory, including his work in green building, wind energy, and even founding a company that converted food waste into industrial protein for fish feed. 

Grant's approach to finding his role within the climate community is described as a challenging and iterative process, where he explored various ideas and considered factors like capital requirements, strategy, and personal fit. 

He also shares his perspective on carbon credits, a topic that has been challenged in popular media.

Grant's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantcanary/

Company website: https://www.mastreforest.com/

Twitter: @MastReforest

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/

On Today's Episode:

Ryan read about Direct Air Capture in Project Drawdown, and because he worked in high-end jewelry, wondered out loud to a friend “can we use DAC to make diamonds?” And the idea stuck. 

In this episode, we dive deep into two topics:

1. Direct Air Capture
2. Fundraising

We also cover:

• The impact and influence of Project Drawdown
• The sexiness of diamonds as a climate solution
• How diamonds are Aether’s Tesla Roadster, and they have other high-value products
• The importance of the climate community
• How to engage on climate
• Anther diamonds on celebrities
• A deep dive into fundraising

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/

On Today's Episode:

Elena and Nico discuss “What is ClimateTech?”

Before ClimateTech, there was CleanTech… an infamous category of startups that “cleaned-up” the world, and is now lovingly referred to as ClimateTech 1.0. CleanTech was focused on basic research for clean technologies, such as high-efficiency solar panels and biofuels. Billions of dollars were invested, and hard-tech is hard, and the investor returns were less than stellar. 

Now, the industry is called ClimateTech, and is greatly focused on software solutions for the climate. There are still hardware startups, yet they are ready for scaling and not focused on the basic R&D of a technology. 

The CEO of Blackrock said that the next 1000 billion dollar startups will be in climate tech, so what does that mean? 

A ClimateTech company is a company that is directly or indirectly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There are so many ways to do this, and so there are so many types of ClimateTech companies. 

Episode links:

PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PWC) State of ClimateTech 2021: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/sustainability/publications/state-of-climate-tech.html

The Climate Avengers is a Resource Labs Podcast Network production.

Remember, you can always find resources, learn more about today’s guest and explore recommendations, book links, and startup advice at www.REsource.co.

You can connect with me, Elena Foukes, on:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/elenascs

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenafoukes/