August 05, 2019

Ep 25: Rob Day, General Partner at Spring Lane Capital

43 minutes

Today’s guest is Rob Day, General Partner at Spring Lane Capital.

Spring Lane Capital partners with strong management teams who are selling or using distributed assets with compelling customer economics in the energy, water, food and waste sectors. In these sectors, they focus on solutions that have significantly positive impacts on the sustainability of our natural resources, which they believe offer advantaged long-term benefits economically and socially. They’ve found that in practice, most such solutions have major physical components – “distributed assets” are those solutions using equipment or facilities smaller and less concentrated than traditional project finance can address.

Rob has been a sustainable resources private equity investor since 2004, and acts or has served as a Director, Observer and advisory board member to multiple companies in the energy tech and related sectors. Rob also serves on the Board at the New England Clean Energy Council. From 2005-2016 he authored the column Cleantech Investing, which appeared on GreentechMedia.com, and co-hosted several conferences with that group on the topic of new investment models for the sustainability sector.

Formerly a consultant with Bain & Company, Rob has worked with companies and evaluated private equity transactions in the energy/ utilities, telecom, IT, medical/pharmaceutical, and retail industries. Earlier in his career, Rob was a member of the World Resources Institute's Sustainable Enterprise Program, where he co-authored the report The Next Bottom Line: Making Sustainable Development Tangible. Rob received his MBA at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Northwestern University), and his BA at Swarthmore College.

In this episode we discuss:

Overview of Spring Lane Capital

Rob’s background & history and what got him initially caring about the planet and sustainability

Spring Lane Capital model, target customers, what alternatives existed before they came along, and how they are different

How they measure success, in terms of both financial returns and the mission

What Rob would be doing to focus on climate change if he wasn’t doing this

Rob’s advice to people trying to find their own ways to make a mark in this problem space

Links for topics discussed in this episode:

Aries Clean Energy: https://ariescleanenergy.com/

Generate Capital: https://generatecapital.com/

Ultra Capital: https://www.ultracapital.com/

Rob Day’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robday/

Rob Day’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/cleantechvc

I hope you enjoy the show!

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and via email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

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