Built for Earth

Latest Episodes:

High-Performance Materials for a Low-Carbon World | Bryan Hassin - CEO of DexMat Feb 26, 2024

Show notes

DexMat is a climate tech moonshot company creating high-performance materials for a low-carbon world. Its flagship product, Galvorn, is carbon-negative at scale, 10x stronger than steel, half the weight of aluminum, and more conductive than copper.

Prior to DexMat, Bryan built the world’s largest climate tech acceleration venture, Third Derivative, in under two years as CEO, driving over $1.5 billion dollars worth of investment in over 150 companies. Bryan has also co-founded and led multiple other energy startups to successful exits.

In this episode we cover...

[1:37] Why Bryan chose to run DexMat

[4:55] What makes our current materials problematic

[9:33] Galvorn’s multifunctional properties

[15:26] What it looks like to produce Galvorn

[20:03] Galvorn’s pathway to cost-competitiveness

[22:10] How DexMat identifies the right investors

[23:49] What the future looks like for DexMat

[27:00] How DexMat is finding focus

[31:50] What Bryan has learned along his entrepreneurial journey

[34:54] Translations from the football field to the business world

[38:40] A fun fact about Bryan

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Episode recorded on February 22, 2024

Catalyzing World-Positive Innovation | Swati Mylavarapu - Founder and Managing Partner of Incite.org Feb 12, 2024

Show notes

Swati Mylavarapu is founder and managing partner of Incite.org where she invests catalytic capital and provides guidance to start-ups and non-profits developing world-positive innovation across climate tech, health tech, and social impact.

Prior to founding Incite, Swati spent years working in the early stage technology industry as both an investor and an entrepreneur. She has been a Partner at Kleiner Perkins, served as National Investment Chair for Pete For America, and also co-founded Arena, which is building a new generation of leaders in American public service.

In this episode we cover...

[1:45] The inspiration for Incite

[4:15] How Swati has seen impact investing change

[6:44] How Incite’s flexible investment model has manifested

[10:36 ] What Incite is spending it’s time on now

[17:10] What Swati looks for in a founder

[20:30] What makes a good VC investor

[23:28] Advice for people looking to break into venture

[27:50] How Swati builds mission-oriented teams

[29:32] What drives Swati personally and professionally

[32:17] A fun fact about Swati

Roadmaps for Real Climate Progress | Kate Gordon - Former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy Jan 29, 2024

Show notes

Kate Gordon most recently served as Senior Advisor to the US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, where she led initiatives to help drive a more sustainable and inclusive energy transition.

Prior to her time in Washington, she served as Senior Climate Policy Advisor to Governor Gavin Newsom and helped develop some of the most forward looking policies at the state level. She is now a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley’s HAAS School of Business, and is writing a book about place-based policy and investment approaches to the US energy transition.

In this episode we cover...

[1:20] Kate's unique regional development and why climate change is felt locally

[4:05] The importance of place-based initiatives and understanding communities

[8:14] Positive Feedback Loops

[10:00] Kate’s work at the state level on the Climate Catalyst Fund

[13:50] The Community Economic Resilience Fund

[16:24 ] The historic nature of the current federal climate funding

[18:55] How to turn historic funding into meaningful climate progress

[21:23] The Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm’s, key experiences

[23:25] The Community Benefits Plans Criteria

[28:45] CBP Success Stories

[32:45] The importance of repurposing America's current infrastructure

[34:35] Tangible examples of where we can repurpose energy infrastructure

[38:44] The biggest underinvested opportunities in climate

[42:10] A fun fact about Kate

Connect with us: ⁠

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Episode recorded on January 19, 2024

Reducing Food Waste and Building Great Companies | Matt Rogers - Co-Founder & CEO of Mill Jan 15, 2024

Show notes

Matt Rogers is the co-founder and CEO of Mill, a new way to keep food waste in the food system. Reducing food waste from households presents one of the greatest opportunities for individuals to reduce their climate impact.

Matt started his career at Apple where he was one of the first engineers on the iPhone. He then co-founded Nest, the first learning thermostat to help households reduce their energy usage, which was later acquired by Google. Matt is also a co-founder of Incite.org, which provides catalytic capital and guidance to start-ups and non-profits developing world-positive innovation.

In this episode we cover:

[1:15] Matt’s Inspiration for Mill

[2:56] How building Mill has differed from other products Matt has built

[6:15] Why Matt chose the home as the best place to reduce food waste

[8:35] Why Mill is turning food waste into chicken feed

[10:32] How Mill is emphasizing communities and local food loops

[12:50] Mill’s ambitions and the importance of focus

[14:52] Lessons from Nest that Matt is applying to Mill

[17:50] Matt’s perspective on effective program management and board meetings

[21:00] Matt’s lessons on fundraising

[22:08] What Matt looks for as an investor

[23:12] The differences between leading an early and growth stage company

[25:14] How Matt takes care of himself as a founder

[27:34] Matt’s advice to aspiring climate leaders

[29:18] A fun fact about Matt

Enabling Climate-Friendly EV Batteries | Virginia Irwin Klausmeier - President & CEO of Sylvatex Dec 12, 2023

Show notes

Sylvatex is an advanced materials technology company that is innovating the active materials and processes for lithium-ion battery cathode production that drastically reduce the associated greenhouse gas emissions.

Virginia Irwin Klausmeier is President and CEO of Sylvatex (SVX). With her background in chemistry and engineering, Virginia launched the company in 2014 and has been leading the technical and business operations since. In this episode we cover...

Virginia's inspiration for SVX

SVX's pivot from sustainable fuels to batteries

The problems with current EV battery supply chains

How SVX's process improves on current processes

The role of the cathode in the battery

SVXs go-to-market strategy

Why "Being Kind" is Virginia's entrepreneurial advice

Translating athletic learnings to the business world Connect with us: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠LinkedIn⁠ | ⁠X⁠ Episode recorded on December 6, 2023

Modular Fusion Power Reactors | Brian Riordan - Co-founder & COO of Avalanche Energy Nov 13, 2023

Show notes

Avalanche Energy is developing modular fusion micro-reactors to create scaleable carbon-free power.

Brian Riordan is co-founder and COO of Avalanche. Before launching Avalanche Energy in 2018, Brian was a leader in the aerospace industry as a lead launch System architect at Blue Origin. Before his time at Blue Origin, Brian focused his work on subsea mining.

In this episode we cover...

The differences between fission and fusion
Recent fusion progress
What makes Avalanche's approach to fusion different
How Brian addresses skeptics of fusion
How Avalanche is managing their fundraising
What Avalanche is currently working on
What Brian has learned since founding Avalanche
Brian, the spider-eater

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Episode recorded on October 17, 2023

Enabling Carbon-Negative Lithium | Steven Vassiloudis & Christiaan Jordaan - Co-founders of Novalith Oct 30, 2023

Show notes

Novalith is creating carbon-negative lithium by using carbon dioxide to unlock the mineral from hard rock while sequestering the harmful greenhouse gas.

Steven Vassiloudis, CEO of Novalith, is an experienced chemical engineer who has led scaling efforts for numerous clean tech start-ups. He is also a director of Kemplant, a provider of equipment for lithium and battery chemical industries.

Christiaan, CBDO of Novalith, is also an experienced entrepreneur, most recently founding a battery anode technology company, Sicona.

In this episode we cover...

The need for lithium and the lithium market
Where lithium comes from
The current lithium-refining process
Novalith's novel refining process
Novalith's plan for scaling cost effectively
Challenges facing Novalith
The South African super team

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Episode Recorded on October 16, 2023

Using the Earth to Heat and Cool Buildings | Joselyn Lai - Co-Founder and CEO of Bedrock Energy Oct 16, 2023

Show notes

Bedrock is transforming the heating and cooling of buildings, using geothermal energy to radically reduce costs for people and the environment.

Joselyn Lai is an experienced entrepreneur having spent nearly all of her career scaling purpose-driven start-ups. In early 2022, she launched Bedrock, one of the hottest companies in climate tech, having just announced a $8.5M seed fundraising round to accelerate manufacturing and deployment of their novel drilling technologies.

In this episode we cover...

Bedrock's latest fundraise
What made Joselyn choose geothermal energy
How geothermal energy fundamentally works
Bedrock's drilling technology and site due diligence
The amount of heat expected from a borehole
Why geothermal energy is so cost effective
What the next 12 months looks like for Bedrock
What Joselyn has learned starting Bedrock
The skills climate-focused students should develop
A fun fact about Joselyn

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Episode Recorded on October 13, 2023

Electric Vehicle Charging with Superpowers | Anurag Kamal - CEO of ElectricFish Sep 27, 2023

Show notes

ElectricFish is building distributed energy storage powered by software to accelerate energy equity through extreme-fast electric vehicle charging and backup.
Anurag Kamal is a mechanical engineer, battery researcher turned energy entrepreneur. Before starting ElectricFish, he worked with the BMW Group technology office and Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he research lithium-ion battery cells. Anurag and his co-founder, Folasade Ayoola were also recognized as Forbes 30 under 30 leaders in Energy.

In this episode we cover...

What is community energy storage
What differentiates ElectricFish from the likes of ChargePoint and Tesla SuperChargers
The need for EV chargers across the country, quantified
ElectricFish's 350 squared and it's superpowers
The core values of ElectricFish
Recent partnerships and future business ambitions
Anurag's learnings as a founder
Anurag, the future stand-up comedian

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Episode Recorded on September 16, 2023

Bringing Renewable Energy to the Moon (Literally) | Ken Liang - Co-Founder of Orbital Mining Sep 18, 2023

Show notes

Orbital Mining is bringing renewable energy to the moon in hopes to power lunar mining operations that would enable deep space exploration.

Orbital Mining launched just over a year ago and have quickly gained traction with the most respected space agencies. Orbital has already won $600,000 in funding from NASA in an on-going competition to bring power to the moon. Prior to launching Orbital, Ken studied Civil Engineering at Georgia Tech and worked for over 5 years in construction software management. He is currently pursuing a Master’s in Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines.

In this episode we cover...

Orbital Mining's mission and vision
The implications of lunar mining for earth
Orbital Mining's microgrid technology
Challenges of the lunar environment
Orbital's first product and partnerships
What the future looks like for Orbital
Why a diverse founding team is so important
Jasper, the Huskeranian

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Episode Recorded on September 13, 2023

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