Here's what we discussed in this episode of Venturing in Climate: Kona Energy, what it does and why it is important Starting out: what made Andy set up Kona and take the leap into entrepreneurship How Andy manages uncertainty as a Founder Raising funding and its challenges The opportunity for battery storage Battery technology and other technologies (e.g. hydrogen) What needs to change fast to encourage more battery storage The impact of the European energy crisis on renewables and battery storage Quick fire-round and Carbon Chain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informatio ..read more

Rob Trezona is a Founding Partner of Kiko Ventures, a $450m evergreen cleantech investment platform, backed by IP Group and based in London. Kiko aims to make the impossible possible in the fight against climate change. Rob worked at IP Group for over 10 years before launching Kiko Ventures, was a Non-Executive Director of Ceres Power, has been working in cleantech since 2000 and started his career as a hydrogen and fuel cell scientist. In this episode, we discuss: 1) Rob's journey into venture capital and why VC 2) Fund structures and their impact on investing in deeptech companies 3) Benefi ..read more

Patrick Sheehan is the Founder and Managing Partner of ETF Partners (Environmental Technologies Fund), a leading European climate VC firm, founded in 2006 and focusing mainly on Series B and beyond investments. Patrick has invested across cleantech cycles and has a wealth of experience in the space. In this episode, we discuss: 1) Patrick's journey into venture capital 2) His motivations to start an environmental VC fund 3) How the cleantech investing cycle has evolved since Cleantech 1.0 4) How fundraising has evolved over time 5) Example investments ETF has made 6) Hardware investing 7) Mea ..read more

In this episode of Venturing in Climate, I spoke to Irena Spazzapan, Managing Partner of Systemiq Capital. Systemiq Capital is a London-based climate technology venture capital firm which has recently launched the first close of its £70m Fund II. We discuss: 1) Irena's career journey to managing a climate tech VC firm 2) Building a VC firm and adding value 3) What Systemiq Capital looks for with examples 4) Investing in hardware, capital intensity and dilution 5) Fundraising process for a VC fund 6) Over and under-invested areas of climate tech 7) Quantifying impact potential 8) Typical fund ..read more

In this episode of Venturing in Climate, I spoke to Tessa Clarke, CEO and Co-Founder of OLIO. OLIO is an app that connects local communities and businesses to share surplus food and other household items. OLIO has raised ~$50m in funding. We discuss: 1) What OLIO does and how the idea came about 2) Tessa's career journey 3) The scale of food waste and key challenges 4) Key lessons from maintaining a good relationship with your Co-Founder 5) Going from start-up to scale-up and key lessons 6) Fundraising: 'cockroach plan', current funding climate and valuation 7) A day in the life of Tessa 8 ..read more

In this episode of Venturing in Climate, I spoke to Johan Du Plessis, CEO and Founder of Tepeo who are tackling the vast amount of emissions from domestic heating through their Zero Emission Boilers (ZEBs). We discuss: 1) What Tepeo does 2) How Johan came to found Tepeo 3) The challenge of heating - ~20% of carbon emissions are associated with domestic heating 4) Lessons from entrepreneurship 5) Being a sole founder 6) The need to move from a centralised to decentralised energy system...and the energy crisis 7) What's next for Tepeo 8) Advice from moving into the climate space 9) Quick-fire r ..read more

In this episode, I interview Tom McGillyCuddy, Co-Founder of CIRCA5000. CIRCA5000 is an impact-investing platform which has raised over £12m in funding. In this episode, we discuss: 1) What CIRCA5000 does and what stage it is at 2) How Tom and Matt started CIRCA5000 and why 3) Retention 4) Becoming an entrepreneur and the key lessons learned 5) Profit and purpose 6) Challenges of working with VCs 7) Building leading teams and tips for hiring 8) When to build an executive team 9) Founder mental health 10) Investing in the current environment 11) Measuring impact 12) Challenges of ESG approach ..read more

During this episode, I interviewed Helen Lin, one of the founding team of At One Ventures, a $150million planet-positive climate VC fund investing in the US, Europe and in emerging markets. We tackle some very timely and crucial climate-related topics. Here is what Helen and I discussed: 1) Helen's journey into venture capital and climate tech 2) What At One Ventures focuses on 3) How At One helps founders 4) Valuations and deployment speed 5) Why it isn't too late to tackle climate change and what we need to do 6) At One's investment into Dendra 7) Carbon offsetting - its role in tackling c ..read more