Inevitable

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Ep. 211: Stephan Nicoleau, Managing Director at FullCycle May 30, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Stephan Nicoleau, Managing Director at FullCycle.

FullCycle developed a unique investment model, specifically designed to accelerate the deployment of climate-critical technologies. These technologies must exceed their thresholds for carbon return on investment and deliver above market returns on a risk adjusted basis. Stephan leads the firm's capital formation and partnerships, and brings more than a decade of investing and investment advisory experience to the team.

I was excited for this one because FullCycle is interesting. They do both growth stage equity investing and they do project finance and like to get involved early in terms of the first few plants that get built and things like that, which I've heard from many people and founders is a gap and one that's highly additional to help address. We cover a lot in this episode, including Stephan's background and what led him to doing the work that he's doing, FullCycle's model, origin story, and progress to date, as well as their investment approach and how they measure success. We also cover how they think about returns, LP composition, some examples of sectors and companies they have gotten involved with, and what types of resources they bring to bear beyond capital to be helpful to the companies they work with.

Enjoy the show!

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 (me), @mcjpod (podcast), or @mcjcollective (company) and via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded April 19, 2022

To learn more about FullCycle, visit: https://www.fullcycle.com/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/stephan-nicoleau

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

Startup Series: Electric Hydrogen May 26, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Raffi Garabedian, Co-Founder and CEO of Electric Hydrogen.

Electric Hydrogen is creating a new generation of electrolyzer technologies to enable clean, abundant and low cost hydrogen to end the age of fossil fuels. They closed an A round of financing back in 2021, including participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Prelude Ventures, Capricorn's Technology Impact Fund, and Energy Impact partners.

I was excited for this one as one, hydrogen is such an important topic and a controversial one. Two, I really wanted to learn more about Electric Hydrogen's approach. They've raised a bunch of money early in their journey from high caliber climate investors, and they have quite an experienced team. Raffi himself was the Chief Technology Officer of First Solar before jumping in as Co-Founder of Electric Hydrogen. We cover a lot in this episode, including the state of heavy industry, what makes it so hard to decarbonize, the role that hydrogen can play, where it is in its evolution, some of the barriers holding it back, some of the approaches that seem promising, and of course, Electric Hydrogens approach. We cover where electrolyzers fit in, how their electrolyzer is different and better, what types of target customers they focus on, how close they are to going to market, what some of the biggest risks are, what scale looks like, and how it will be financed.

Enjoy the show!

To learn more about Electric Hydrogen, visit: https://eh2.com/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/electric-hydrogen

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

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

Ep. 210: Tony Fadell, Principal at Future Shape and fmr iPod, iPhone, & Nest May 23, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Tony Fadell, Principal at Future Shape.

Tony is an active investor and entrepreneur with a 30+ year history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people’s lives. As the Principal at Future Shape, a global investment and advisory firm coaching engineers and scientists working on foundational deep technology, he is continuing to help bring technology out of the lab and into our lives. Currently, Future Shape is coaching 200+ startups innovating game-changing technologies.

Tony began his career in Silicon Valley at General Magic, the most influential startup nobody has ever heard of. He is the founder and former CEO of Nest, the company that pioneered the “Internet of Things” and created the Nest Learning Thermostat. Tony was the SVP of Apple’s iPod Division and led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Throughout his career, Tony has authored more than 300 patents. In May 2016, TIME named the Nest Learning Thermostat, the iPod, and the iPhone as three of the “50 Most Influential Gadgets of All Time.”

His new book is Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making.

Enjoy the show!

Episode recorded April 13, 2022

To learn more about Future Shape, visit: https://www.futureshape.com/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/tony-fadell

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

Startup Series: Flux Marine May 19, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Ben Sorkin, the Founder and CEO of Flux Marine, a company that offers 100% electric outboard motors.

Flux Marine is seeking to accelerate the electrification of the marine industry. We have a great discussion in this episode about the origin story of the company, Flux Marine's product and offering, and their decision to offer the motors as a standalone versus building the boat end to end. We also talk about their go to market strategy and approach, Ben's thoughts on electrification in general and where consumer sentiment fits in, where quality fits in, where cost fits in, where scalability fits in, and of course, where sustainability fits in.

We talk about the best ways to finance a company like this and the decisions that Flux Marine has made to date, including their recent $15 million equity round. And we also talk about their key goals for the company, how they stage those goals, what stage they're in now, what's coming next, and their long vision. We also talk about how the ecosystem will play out in general and what the role is of the big incumbents, what the role is of the upstarts, what the role is of the a la carte providers like the motors and what the role is of more of the Tesla or the apple approach end to end.

It's an episode that will really make you think, and hopefully you'll learn something as well. And if you're a boater, you'll probably also be eager to get your hands on one of their products when they ship sometime soon.

Enjoy the show!

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

Episode recorded May 4, 2022

To learn more about Flux Marine, visit: https://www.fluxmarine.com/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/flux-marine

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

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

Ep. 209: Joel Armin-Hoiland, Founder & CEO at Climate Finance Solutions May 16, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Joel Armin-Hoiland, Founder and CEO of Climate Finance Solutions.

Climate Finance Solutions, or CFS, as it's also known, is a mission driven consultancy that helps companies and organizations around the world secure non-dilutive funding to develop and scale high impact climate solutions. They also provide technology, business and project development consulting to support their clients in securing funding and scaling their solutions. Their team has secured over $75 million in non-dilutive funding and leveraged over 30 million more in external co-financing, including several million dollars in impact equity investment with an 88% success rate.

Joel also was an early member of the MCJ community, and he's been an active contributor, both in the slack community and also advising and ultimately consulting with several companies in the MCJ Collective portfolio. Non-dilutive financing is different than equity financing, and especially for climate tech companies, it comes up a lot. It can be a viable source of funding, but many founders coming from other types of technology companies that maybe haven't gotten exposed to non dilutive funding before don't know how go to go about obtaining it.

In this episode, we cover the how to think about non-dilutive funding, who it's a fit for, the process to obtain it, and pitfalls to watch out for along the way.

Enjoy the show!

To learn more about Climate Finance Solutions, visit: https://www.climatefinancesolutions.com/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/joel-armin-hoiland

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

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

Startup Series: Wildtype May 12, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Justin Kolbeck, co-founder and CEO of Wildtype.

Wildtype is a startup creating sushi-grade cultivated salmon, and they recently announced the completion of a hundred million-dollar series B funding round, which was the largest for a cultivated seafood company. I was excited for this one because it's clear that our current food system is not sustainable. It's a huge source of emissions, and we're going to have to feed billions of additional people over time. It's unclear today how we're going to do that, and especially do that in a way that is more sustainable with each other and with the planet that we rely on to support us and other life forms. Seafood, of course, is one of the largest categories of food, and Wildtype is one of the leaders in the cultivated seafood market, which made for a really interesting discussion.

We talk about the origin story of the company and what led Justin without a background in this area to anchor here, the state of the cultivated meat/seafood landscape when they started and how that's evolved to today, and Justin's predictions for how the market will play out over time. We also talk about some of the key challenges in building the company, how to balance customer development with the technical work in the lab, and Wildtype’s plans in terms of go-to market strategy, which sources of capital they have used to date, and which they anticipate using over time.

Enjoy the show!

Episode recorded May 3, 2022

To learn more about Wildtype, visit: https://www.wildtypefoods.com/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/wildtype

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

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

Ep. 208: Gerald Butts, Vice Chair at Eurasia Group May 09, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Gerald Butts, Vice Chair of the Eurasia Group and former Principal Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada and Premier of Ontario. He also served as the CEO of the World Wildlife Fund Canada. In 2014, McLean's Magazine declared Gerald to be the 14th most powerful Canadian. And as the former Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Trudeau, Gerald was praised as the architect behind the Liberal Party of Canada's platform that led to their victory in October of 2015. He was also one of Prime Minister Trudeau's most senior staffers.

I was excited about this one on a number of levels. One, it's just great to hear from someone that's operated in the political realm at such a high of given how important politics is for climate action. Two, it was great to hear from someone outside of the walls of the U.S, but a pretty close neighbor about the U.S' role. It's also interesting that after hundreds of MCJ episodes, conventional wisdom is while a carbon tax might be super impactful, no one thinks it's possible or most people certainly don't and yet Canada did it. And Gerald was a key person that helped get that over the line.

Enjoy the show!

Episode recorded April 4, 2022

To learn more about Eurasia Group, visit: https://www.eurasiagroup.net/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/gerald-butts

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

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

Startup Series: Planetary May 05, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Mike Kelland, CEO of Planetary. Planetary has an accelerated carbon transition platform that creates effective carbon removal at gigaton scale and reduces emissions through a clean alternative to fossil fuels. Their platform results in permanently sequestered carbon through ocean air capture, ocean deacidification, and clean hydrogen. They also recently won the XPRIZE Milestone Prize.

Mike was actually one of the earliest listeners of this podcast, one of the earliest members of the My Climate Journey member community, and he also has a similar story to mine, coming from the traditional software startup world and finding his way into climate tech. In this episode, we talk about Mike's journey, why it came about, how it came about, the different phases and stages that he went through between becoming determined to work in climate and anchoring where he did.

We talk about the Planetary origin story and Mike's evaluation process, in which he was talking to different labs and assessing different technologies. And we talk about what he learned about determining commercial viability and commercial readiness. We also talk about the Planetary approach, where they're at today, the different risks, the business model, building pilot plants, how those will be financed, who their customers will be, what the value proposition is for those customers.

And we have a great discussion about carbon removal in general and some of the debates that have been occurring, what Mike's thoughts are on those debates, what gives him the confidence that carbon removal is not only important, but ultimately will be viable, and also just how the landscape plays out. Is there one winner? Are there a few winners? Is there a huge long tail, where there'll be lots of different winners? Are there no winners? At any rate, really great discussion, and I think you'll learn a lot.

Enjoy the show!

Episode recorded April 28, 2022

To learn more about Planetary, visit: https://www.planetarytech.com/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/planetary

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

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

Ep. 207: Johanna Wolfson, General Partner at Azolla Ventures May 02, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Dr. Johanna Wolfson, General Partner at Azolla Ventures. Azolla Ventures, created by Prime Coalition, invests in early-stage technology companies with the potential for gigaton-scale climate impact.

This is a discussion that was actually done live at the MIT Energy Conference on April 1st. It was a great discussion, so we figured we'd publish it as a podcast so that all of you can benefit from this discussion as well.

We cover a lot in this episode, including Johanna's background and what led her to doing the work that she's doing today, Azolla's origin story, it's recent spin out from Prime Coalition, the criteria that they use for making investments, and some of the recent investments they've made. We also have a great discussion about the role of catalytic capital in general, how it's different from other types of capital in climate tech investing, and what it will take to help these technologies reach wide scale deployment and impact. We talk about some of the barriers, some changes that would help the clean energy transition happen faster, and how you and I can help.

Enjoy the show!

Episode recorded April 1, 2022

To learn more about the Azolla Ventures, visit: https://www.azollaventures.com/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/johanna-wolfson

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

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

Startup Series: Dance Apr 28, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss, CEO and Co-Founder of Dance, a premium ebike subscription service based in Berlin. Eric also co-founded music streaming platform SoundCloud, and occasionally angel invests in companies in the sustainability space.

With Dance's electric mobility subscription, their members can easily explore their city with an ebike or emoped while benefiting from included maintenance and repairs. Both individuals and businesses can make convenient and fun mobility choices without the investment of ownership: membership is flexible.

In this episode, we cover Eric's startup journey, climate journey, and how they ultimately intersected. We talk about the Dance origin story, vision, progress to date, and key strategic priorities. And we have a great discussion about mobility, the future of cities, and what it will take to decarbonize transportation. And finally, it was super useful to hear Eric's thoughts on how to balance maximum impact on a spreadsheet with finding things to work on that give you energy and align with your passions and skills.

Enjoy the show!

Episode recorded April 22, 2022

To learn more about Dance, visit: https://dance.co/

To learn more about this episode, visit: https://mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/dance

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

Connect with Override:

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