Climate Cowboys

Today we are joined by Ryan Begin. One of the founding members of Divert.

Divert is building food waste to energy plants that have achieved the scale to become profitable, scalable, and impactful in combating climate change.

This is a truly inspiring story as it took them about 13 years to get to the point of proving their technology and perfecting the business model in a way that they could then get serious funding. Serious funding refers to, them now hitting a point of getting funding from Private Equity groups. In particular, Infrastructure funds.

In the conversation, we go through how Ryan got into the space and left the defense space to be part of the founding team at Divert. We talk about the challenges and the milestones along the way. Then in the latter half, we discuss a lot about the financing of their business, how to get to the point of attracting Infrastructure Funding, and how important talent is to the success of your business.

Genuinely engaging conversation and insights from Ryan.

Enjoy this conversation 🌎

Topics:

* 1:43 Intro and how he came from Defense to Climate

* 6:10 His CleanTech 1.0

* 8:56 How the process looks and what they do

* 15:52 Their business Model

* 25:23 Once they have the waste

* 29:11 Carbon Credits?

* 30:39 Early days of the company

* 37:53 Financing (PE vs VC + Revenue Quality + TAM + Infrastructure Play)

* 44:15 How to Prove Growth and Quality of Revenue

* 47:08 Talent

* 52:12 The future

Links:

* Connect with Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/divertfounder/

* Divert Website:

https://divertinc.com/

*  

* Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners:

https://www.next-wavepartners.com/

* Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email

* Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clean-techies/

* HMU on Twitter: @silasmahner

-----

* #39 Helping Commercial Kitchens Reduce Food Waste and Save Money

* #62 Solving Fresh Food Inventory Management with Johannes from Afresh

* #83 From 30% to 90% Li Recovery, Founding a ClimateTech Co, & Talent Moat w/ Teague Egan (EnergyX)

* #71 Demystifying Alternative-Protein and How its Made with Sharyn Murray from Good Food Institute (GFI)

Today we are joined by the founder of Oceanid MRV, Ben Swainbank. 

For context, carbon capture and the measurement of how much is captured is something pretty well solved in forestry and direct air capture. However, for oceanic capture, it is not. This presents a big dilemma as Oceanic Carbon Capture is widely regarded as the most scalable method to pull carbon out of the air at a gigaton scale. 

Ben today talks to us about how he and his team are working on formalizing and certifying the amount and quality of carbon captured through such oceanic projects. 

This conversation was super helpful for understanding why oceanic pathways are important as well as the challenges of measuring the work done in a manner that is accurate and sufficient to certify. 

An interesting takeaway from this episode is how Ben, as a non-scientist, is building a company in a scientific space but is doing it by surrounding himself with a team of oceanographers and then bringing together the science and the commercial side of things. 

Early on in the show he also walked us through the steps he took to decide if this was a space he should go deeper on. This was a very helpful framework for any aspiring ClimateTech founders. 

We hope you enjoy this episode of the show! 

Topics: 

* 1:44 Intro and origin story

* 7:18 CDR Industry as a whole

* Trees

* DAC

* Ocean

* 9:17 Marine Pathways

* Biomass Cultivation

* Direct Ocean Capture

* Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement

* 11:53 How they capture carbon and measure it

* 14:04 Ocean Measurements

* 18:00 Durability of ocean capture

* 22:13 Starting the company

* 29:19 How their model works

* 33:04 The fundraising process

* 37:31 Advice to ocean MRV science startups

* 41:42 Making the jump to be a full-time entrepreneur

* 47:37 Starting a biz as a non-science founder

* 51:55 Corporate / Gov incentives

* 57:01 Closing thoughts 

Links: 

* [email protected]

* Oceanid MRV Website:

* Ben Swainbank on LinkedIn:

* Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners:

* Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email

* Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: 

* HMU on Twitter: @silasmahner

______

We are proud to continue working with NextWave as our official show sponsor for this podcast. NextWave and all of its staff are highly motivated to advance the ClimateTech revolution and are constantly innovating ways that they can help affect that transition. From experts in the talent space to ESG experts, NextWave is taking on Climate and Social responsibility head-on and helping companies build great cultures that not only make the world a better place but also increase workplace satisfaction. Reach out to NextWave Partners today to learn more about how we might partner with you today.

https://www.next-wavepartners.com/ - [email protected]

Today we were joined by Susan Su. Susan is a Partner at Toba Capital which differentiates from many funds in that it only has one LP. That LP invests across a range of spaces which allows the Toba team to get special insight into other areas of investing which could affect their investments and existing portfolio companies. 

Susan has to be one of the most genuine people I've had on the show. She shared her career journey and how she went from being an operator to working with Sound Ventures (founded by Ashton Kutcher) and eventually ending up as a Partner at Toba Capital. 

We discussed some details about being a VC specifically around doing follow-up rounds. We covered the differences of investing in Hardware vs Software. The limitations of smaller VCs are to get into deep tech or hardware tech. We spoke about how hard it is to be a VC. Breaking into VC. And probably one of the most valuable things is advice to founders about their fundraising process. 

Many of the things she said especially around her advice to young people about patience and impatience, really struck accord with me. 

Super glad that I can bring this episode to you. Enjoy! 

Topics: 

* 1:09 Intro and early Career

* 8:59 Hurdles to VC

* 12:43 VC & Profit Seeking

* 15:42  VC - Soft vs Hardware Investing

* 18:14 Toba Capital

* 22:29 New Ecosystems to Support Deep/Climate Tech DD

* 25:30 Follow on investing

* 31:16 Hardest Part of Job

* 34:51 Advice to Founders | Plan the Raise, then Raise

* 38:29 Obvious Prediction

* 40:12 Advice for Getting into VC | Meet Founders Now 

Links: 

* Toba Captal: https://tobacapital.com/

* Susan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/susanfsu

* Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners: https://www.next-wavepartners.com/

* Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email

* Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clean-techies/ 

* HMU on Twitter: @silasmahner

__________

We are proud to continue working with NextWave as our official show sponsor for this podcast. NextWave and all of its staff are highly motivated to advance the ClimateTech revolution and are constantly innovating ways that they can help affect that transition. From experts in the talent space to ESG experts, NextWave is taking on Climate and Social responsibility head-on and helping companies build great cultures that not only make the world a better place but also increase workplace satisfaction. Reach out to NextWave Partners today to learn more about how we might partner with you today.

https://www.next-wavepartners.com/ [email protected]

Today we are joined by Nicola Rubini from the River Cleaning Project by Conai. 

You may not know, but 80% of plastics that end up in the ocean are deposited there by rivers. Today we speak with Nicola about how they are trying to fix this problem given that rivers are conveniently a focused path of water. 

The technology they have is pretty fascinating but what's more, is the nuances required to navigate the political issues and the difficulties of building this type of business. 

Really interesting challenges that hopefully are valuable to any founders listening. 

Enjoy the episode! 🌍

Topics: 

* 1:03 Intro and Data Behind Plastic Pollution

* 15:09 Dealing with Navigable Rivers

* 23:44 Financing the Projects

* 27:42 Plastic Credits

* 39:49  Regulation: The Plastics Treaty

* 48:04 Demonstrating the Impact to the Public

Links: 

* Connect with Nicola:

* Conai Website:

* Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners:

https://www.next-wavepartners.com/

* Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email

* Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clean-techies/ 

* HMU on Twitter: @silasmahner

__________

We are proud to continue working with NextWave as our official show sponsor for this podcast. NextWave and all of its staff are highly motivated to advance the ClimateTech revolution and are constantly innovating ways that they can help affect that transition. From experts in the talent space to ESG experts, NextWave is taking on Climate and Social responsibility head-on and helping companies build great cultures that not only make the world a better place but also increase workplace satisfaction. Reach out to NextWave Partners today to learn more about how we might partner with you today.

https://www.next-wavepartners.com/ / [email protected]

Today we have a pretty interesting capital provider joining us. Ethan Goldsmith is an Investment Partner at Keyframe Capital and helped found TeraWatt Infrastructure (the fleet charging behemoth). 

We went through the usual stuff around his background, early career, what they are doing, how they source deals, and their unique points but the core of this conversation in my opinion is really in their model. 

Since their inception, they saw that ClimateTech would require more flexible capital structures given that the pure equity model wasn't going to work given how capital-intensive most of these technologies are. They set up their fund to include those flexibilities. 

As an example, they might find a firm that is in need of funding, they could write a check in return for equity, but then in a few months, they might issue a specific project finance product for that use case. If the portfolio company needed to raise that in the form of equity for dollars, they would quickly be eradicating their cap table space. 

This to me is the most important aspect of this entire conversation and I'm glad we had the chance to speak with Ethan to go through it. There are other interesting topics here but this is key for other fund builders to consider. 

Enjoy the episode! 

Topics: 

* 1:57 Intro

* 7:35 What led them to recognize the infra -- VC Gap

* 14:27 Getting into PE/VC

* 19:13 Building TeraWatt

* 24:47 Key Takeaways from starting TeraWatt

* 26:47 Differentiating their model through flexible capital

* 31:36 Their Verticals

* 38:11 Managing deal flow

* 40:58  They spend a lot of time in the market before investing because of their model

* 42:32 How they help their portfolio co's

* 45:45  Advice to hardware and capital-intensive startups in ClimateTech

* 48:36 Obvious Prediction

* 50:47 Final thoughts 

Links: 

* Connect with Ethan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethan-goldsmith-186b3627

* Keyframe Capital Website:

https://www.keyframecapital.com/

* Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners:

https://www.next-wavepartners.com/

* Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email

* Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clean-techies/ 

* HMU on Twitter: @silasmahner

__________

We are proud to continue working with NextWave as our official show sponsor for this podcast. NextWave and all of its staff are highly motivated to advance the ClimateTech revolution and are constantly innovating ways that they can help affect that transition. From experts in the talent space to ESG experts, NextWave is taking on Climate and Social responsibility head-on and helping companies build great cultures that not only make the world a better place but also increase workplace satisfaction. Reach out to NextWave Partners today to learn more about how we might partner with you today.

https://www.next-wavepartners.com / [email protected]

Today we are joined by the founder of Oceanid MRV, Ben Swainbank. 

For context, carbon capture and the measurement of how much is captured is something pretty well solved in forestry and direct air capture. However, for oceanic capture, it is not. This presents a big dilemma as Oceanic Carbon Capture is widely regarded as the most scalable method to pull carbon out of the air at a gigaton scale. 

Ben today talks to us about how he and his team are working on formalizing and certifying the amount and quality of carbon captured through such oceanic projects. 

This conversation was super helpful for understanding why oceanic pathways are important as well as the challenges of measuring the work done in a manner that is accurate and sufficient to certify. 

An interesting takeaway from this episode is how Ben, as a non-scientist, is building a company in a scientific space but is doing it by surrounding himself with a team of oceanographers and then bringing together the science and the commercial side of things. 

Early on in the show he also walked us through the steps he took to decide if this was a space he should go deeper on. This was a very helpful framework for any aspiring ClimateTech founders. 

We hope you enjoy this episode of the show! 

Topics: 

• 1:44 Intro and origin story
• 7:18 CDR Industry as a whole
  • Trees
  • DAC
  • Ocean
• 9:17 Marine Pathways
  • Biomass Cultivation
  • Direct Ocean Capture
  • Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement
• 11:53 How they capture carbon and measure it
• 14:04 Ocean Measurements
• 18:00 Durability of ocean capture
• 22:13 Starting the company
• 29:19 How their model works
• 33:04 The fundraising process
• 37:31 Advice to ocean MRV science startups
• 41:42 Making the jump to be a full-time entrepreneur
• 47:37 Starting a biz as a non-science founder
• 51:55 Corporate / Gov incentives
• 57:01 Closing thoughts 

Links: 

• [email protected]
• Oceanid MRV Website:
• Ben Swainbank on LinkedIn:
• Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners:
• Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email
• Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: 

Support the show

If you're gonna change the world, you're gonna need a world-class team. Partner with ErthTech Talent to help you do that, for less.

• 70+ Placements
• 5+ Years (exclusively in CleanTech)
• The Lowest Fees in the Market (12-15% of first-year salary)
• 90-day placement guarantee

It's really hard to say no to that.

Wait?! -- The best service is also the cheapest? Seems too good to be true, but it's the entire reason we started this company.

We believe that Climate entrepreneurs are doing important work, and there should be a firm to help them find the best talent, without it breaking the bank.

Reach out today for a free assessment of your hiring process. [email protected]

Today we were joined by Susan Su. Susan is a Partner at Toba Capital which differentiates from many funds in that it only has one LP. That LP invests across a range of spaces which allows the Toba team to get special insight into other areas of investing which could affect their investments and existing portfolio companies. 

Susan has to be one of the most genuine people I've had on the show. She shared her career journey and how she went from being an operator to working with Sound Ventures (founded by Ashton Kutcher) and eventually ending up as a Partner at Toba Capital. 

We discussed some details about being a VC specifically around doing follow-up rounds. We covered the differences of investing in Hardware vs Software. The limitations of smaller VCs are to get into deep tech or hardware tech. We spoke about how hard it is to be a VC. Breaking into VC. And probably one of the most valuable things is advice to founders about their fundraising process. 

Many of the things she said especially around her advice to young people about patience and impatience, really struck accord with me. 

Super glad that I can bring this episode to you. Enjoy! 

Topics: 

• 1:09 Intro and early Career
• 8:59 Hurdles to VC
• 12:43 VC & Profit Seeking
• 15:42  VC - Soft vs Hardware Investing
• 18:14 Toba Capital
• 22:29 New Ecosystems to Support Deep/Climate Tech DD
• 25:30 Follow on investing
• 31:16 Hardest Part of Job
• 34:51 Advice to Founders | Plan the Raise, then Raise
• 38:29 Obvious Prediction
• 40:12 Advice for Getting into VC | Meet Founders Now 

Links: 

• Toba Captal: https://tobacapital.com/  
• Susan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/susanfsu
• Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners: https://www.next-wavepartners.com/
• Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email
• Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clean-techies/ 
• HMU on Twitter: @silasmahner

__________

We are proud to continue working with NextWave as our official show sponsor for this podcast. N

Support the show

If you're gonna change the world, you're gonna need a world-class team. Partner with ErthTech Talent to help you do that, for less.

• 70+ Placements
• 5+ Years (exclusively in CleanTech)
• The Lowest Fees in the Market (12-15% of first-year salary)
• 90-day placement guarantee

It's really hard to say no to that.

Wait?! -- The best service is also the cheapest? Seems too good to be true, but it's the entire reason we started this company.

We believe that Climate entrepreneurs are doing important work, and there should be a firm to help them find the best talent, without it breaking the bank.

Reach out today for a free assessment of your hiring process. [email protected]

Today we are joined by Nicola Rubini from the River Cleaning Project by Conai. 

You may not know, but 80% of plastics that end up in the ocean are deposited there by rivers. Today we speak with Nicola about how they are trying to fix this problem given that rivers are conveniently a focused path of water. 

The technology they have is pretty fascinating but what's more, is the nuances required to navigate the political issues and the difficulties of building this type of business. 

Really interesting challenges that hopefully are valuable to any founders listening. 

Enjoy the episode! 🌍

Topics: 

• 1:03 Intro and Data Behind Plastic Pollution
• 15:09 Dealing with Navigable Rivers
• 23:44 Financing the Projects
  • 27:42 Plastic Credits
• 39:49  Regulation: The Plastics Treaty
• 48:04 Demonstrating the Impact to the Public

Links: 

• Connect with Nicola:
• Conai Website:
• Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners: https://www.next-wavepartners.com/
• Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email
• Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clean-techies/ 
• HMU on Twitter: @silasmahner

__________

We are proud to continue working with NextWave as our official show sponsor for this podcast. NextWave and all of its staff are highly motivated to advance the ClimateTech revolution and are constantly innovating ways that they can help affect that transition. From experts in the talent space to ESG experts, NextWave is taking on Climate and Social responsibility head-on and helping companies build great cultures that not only make the world a better place but also increase workplace satisfaction. Reach out to NextWave Partners today to learn more about how we might partner with you today. https://www.next-wavepartners.com/ / [email protected]

Support the show

If you're gonna change the world, you're gonna need a world-class team. Partner with ErthTech Talent to help you do that, for less.

• 70+ Placements
• 5+ Years (exclusively in CleanTech)
• The Lowest Fees in the Market (12-15% of first-year salary)
• 90-day placement guarantee

It's really hard to say no to that.

Wait?! -- The best service is also the cheapest? Seems too good to be true, but it's the entire reason we started this company.

We believe that Climate entrepreneurs are doing important work, and there should be a firm to help them find the best talent, without it breaking the bank.

Reach out today for a free assessment of your hiring process. [email protected]

Today we have a pretty interesting capital provider joining us. Ethan Goldsmith is an Investment Partner at Keyframe Capital and helped found TeraWatt Infrastructure (the fleet charging behemoth). 

We went through the usual stuff around his background, early career, what they are doing, how they source deals, and their unique points but the core of this conversation in my opinion is really in their model. 

Since their inception, they saw that ClimateTech would require more flexible capital structures given that the pure equity model wasn't going to work given how capital-intensive most of these technologies are. They set up their fund to include those flexibilities. 

As an example, they might find a firm that is in need of funding, they could write a check in return for equity, but then in a few months, they might issue a specific project finance product for that use case. If the portfolio company needed to raise that in the form of equity for dollars, they would quickly be eradicating their cap table space. 

This to me is the most important aspect of this entire conversation and I'm glad we had the chance to speak with Ethan to go through it. There are other interesting topics here but this is key for other fund builders to consider. 

Enjoy the episode! 

Topics: 

• 1:57 Intro
• 7:35 What led them to recognize the infra -- VC Gap
• 14:27 Getting into PE/VC
• 19:13 Building TeraWatt
• 24:47 Key Takeaways from starting TeraWatt
• 26:47 Differentiating their model through flexible capital
• 31:36 Their Verticals
• 38:11 Managing deal flow
• 40:58  They spend a lot of time in the market before investing because of their model
• 42:32 How they help their portfolio co's
• 45:45  Advice to hardware and capital-intensive startups in ClimateTech
• 48:36 Obvious Prediction
• 50:47 Final thoughts 

Links: 

• Connect with Ethan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethan-goldsmith-186b3627
• Keyframe Capital Website: https://www.keyframecapital.com/
• Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners: https://www.next-wavepartners.com/
• Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email

Support the show

If you're gonna change the world, you're gonna need a world-class team. Partner with ErthTech Talent to help you do that, for less.

• 70+ Placements
• 5+ Years (exclusively in CleanTech)
• The Lowest Fees in the Market (12-15% of first-year salary)
• 90-day placement guarantee

It's really hard to say no to that.

Wait?! -- The best service is also the cheapest? Seems too good to be true, but it's the entire reason we started this company.

We believe that Climate entrepreneurs are doing important work, and there should be a firm to help them find the best talent, without it breaking the bank.

Reach out today for a free assessment of your hiring process. [email protected]

Today we are joined by Chris Gray, the CTO of RENU Communities. 

At it's simplest form, they are a PE Fund that is doing total retrofits on real estate to make it a sustainable building. 

The more interesting aspects of what they are doing are, 

1. they have an in-house set of experts that are able to help them integrate engineering knowledge with the financial modeling of the projects 
2. they take a very high-quality approach to how they manage the retrofits so that it doesn't impact tenant life
3. they engage with their tenants to help them understand the benefits of the newly installed upgrades 

In the end, Chris also had some interesting insights to share on the IRA bill which directly contributes to the bottom line of real estate owners. So if you own real estate, you might want to check that out as well.

Enjoy today's episode! Peace out! 🌎

Topics: 

• 3:42 Intro to Chris
• 5:40 Seeing how buildings worked led him to an interest in sustainability
• 8:55 Utilities and their incentives around energy efficiency
• 10:26 40% of Emissions are from buildings
• 12:03 Why energy efficiency is now becoming mainstream
• 14:55 Their process
• 28:31 Lifetime Savings
• 33:07 Increased rent for green buildings
• 35:50 Design & Energy Efficiency / Form Factor
• 39:21  How they engage with and educate their tenants
• 41:52 Personal health and green buildings
• 43:57 Green buildings and insurance
• 49:07 The IRA - Some thoughts
• 52:17 Incentives contribute directly contributions to RE Owner's bottom line
• 54:33 Outlook on the green building space

Links: 

• Connect with Chris:
• RENU Communities Website:
• Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners: https://www.next-wavepartners.com/
• Join the Slack Channel:  https://cleantechies.slack.com/join/shared_invite/zt-pd2drz6d-N~9nURU5JlyMXv2ZiO5bAQ#/shared-invite/email
• Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clean-techies/ 
• HMU on Twitter: @silasmahner

__________

We are proud to continue working with NextWave as our official show sponsor for this podcast. NextWave and all of its staff are highly motivated to advance the ClimateTech revolution and are constantly innovating ways that they can help affect that transition. From experts in the talent space to ESG experts, NextWave is taking on Climate and Social responsibility head-on and helping companies build great cultures that not only make the world a better place but also increase workplace satisfaction. Reach out to NextWave Partners today to learn more about how we might partner with you today. https://www.next-wavepartners.com/ / [email protected]