CleanTechies

Marian Krueger comes to us with his experience investing in 120+ early stage CDR startups , and broke down what we should look for and what’s worth watching in the years ahead. He’s a leading expert in CDR having invested in Europe, which is the leading CDR ecosystem in the world. Sitting down with him as a blast, and for our US listeners, this episode is VERY timely with the Biden Administration’...

Today, we speak with Arvin Ganesan, an ex-Obama-Admin EPA and ex-Apple Energy Procurement executive. His career is fascinating, from finance to Policy to Energy Tech CEO. He offers us a lot of insight into their technology, how it works, and specifically how it plays well with utility models of making money. Towards the end, he mentioned the unknown of the commercialization path. He pointed out th...

Michael Kearney started off this podcast defending the political durability of the IRA…and he had us convinced. If that doesn’t have you hooked, I don’t know what will!  Building for deeptech founders is HARD…like folding a fitted sheet hard. And that’s why we need someone like Mike to do it. Mike himself did his undergrad and Ph. D. at MIT, so he’s knows the MIT innovation ecosystem like the back...

There are a few key things Climate Entrepreneurs should know. This guest brought up a bunch of them.  It is incredible to see how successful they are in a crowded space. Today, he shared with us many of the things that helped them succeed.  How to align all stakeholders in the sales process  Building a product so simple the user can be up-skilled without specialized training  Building a culture of...

What do you get when you put Chris Rock, Timothée Chalamet, Greta Thunberg, & Marc Andreessen together? -- You get Tom Ferguson! The King of Water VC! (Warning! Tom is hilarious, so cancel your comedy cellar tickets because you won't need them) Today, we had the chance to speak with Tom, the founding partner of Burnt Island Ventures. They are the leading VC investor in all things water. T...

Allison Wolff | Vibrant Planet Vibrant Planet is basically bringing the tech knowledge from the early FAANG days and applying that to land tender and wildfire resistance. Their platform is a prioritization system for land management restoration by providing real-time scenario planning, monitoring, and reporting. These assessments can help with qualifying projects for conservation finance. Allison...

Recently, the MCJ Podcast experienced huge backlash for having Big Oil players on the show. This prompted us to bring back a past guest, Shaun Abrahamson from Third Sphere. ---- 🌎 Want the full PodLetter? Go to our substack to see the written content that supplements the audio interview.   ---- Shaun last joined us on episode 136 to talk about Navigating the Climate Capital Stack and how to Desig...

Somil chats with Chinmay Malaviya and Charlie Depman, CEO and CTO of Ridepanda, expanding access and usage of e-bikes, e-scooters, and micro mobility through employer sponsored subscriptions. Chinmay and Charlie bring a lot of startup and industry experience and were able to speak not only about their growth but ALSO breakdown the technical designs that help them be successful in micromobility. We...

What if Investors Only Made Money if they *actually* helped save the planet? Welp... folks, we have the show for you because that's exactly what Planet A is doing. Somil and Silas speak with Jessica Burley, a Berlin-based investor at the fund. On top of learning how they are *actually* walking the talk, we found out how they use Carbon Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) in their investing due dili...

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) is a generational government program deploying $27B into clean energy projects across the US. But what is the bill really? Franz Hochstrasser is an expert in financing projects in low-income areas and has a wealth of experience working on climate for the government - both of which are KEY for GGRF.  Franz started his career “giving his 20s” to the governmen...

Somil chats with Vivas Kumar, CEO of Mitra Chem,  the first lithium-ion battery materials manufacturer focused on shortening the lab-to-production timeline by over 90%, addressing the largest barrier to innovation: R&D and scale-up speed. Vivas was a phenomenal orator and if you take a second to learn about Mitra Chem, it’s easy to see why. By combining their knowledge of iron-based cathodes w...

In this episode, Somil chats with Josh Knauer, CEO of ReSeed, bringing carbon credits directly from farmers to the market. They focus on the oldest form of carbon capture – vegetation. They support farmers in taking their protective and restorative farming practices, validating them, and then creating the mechanisms to sell those credits to interested parties.  We talked about: His strategy to dif...

Each year, about 1 billion pounds of chemicals are sprayed on crops in the US alone - globally, that number is around 5.6 billion. Our guest today is AgTechLogic, and they are solving this problem. They do this by helping Farmers retrofit their existing machinery with precision sprayers that use computer vision to identify weeds and spray only on the weeds in a concentrated way that kills the weed...

Are you curious about what happens to solar panels when they are no longer usable? Maybe your crazy uncle's statements from last Thanksgiving about how solar doesn't work are still echoing. Well, look no further. Today, we are speaking with Adam Saghei, Founder of WeRecycleSolar, and we are discussing the end of life for solar panels. How circular can we make the supply chain? What can O...

In this episode, I sit down with Mike Jackson, Managing Partner at Earthshot Ventures. Earthshot Ventures calls themselves carbon generalists and invest from Seed to Series B. They mainly invest in software and “stepchange” hardware with a preference to double down on existing portfolio companies. Mike’s story is great because of how intentional he has excelled at every stage and in multiple sides...

In this episode, we actually have a bit of a flashback for you – I sit down to chat with Tiya Gordon, co-founder and COO of It’s Electric, creating curbside EV charging specifically built for cities.  Before I even go into what we talk about, I’d like to shout out what Tiya has done in the few months since recording this episode in December: She was part of the Green Economy Action Plan, a landmar...

In this episode, Somil chats with Logan Grizzel, partner at MUUS Climate Partners, the climate tech venture capital arm of MUUS & Co. investing at the convergence of decarbonization and technological innovation. This episode probably broke the quotable clip record we have – Logan was a great mix of knowing how to communicate his thoughts and genuinely having such unique insight having worked o...

What happens when successful CleanTech 1.0 founders step up to the plate again? Anza happens and it's magical. Today, Somil & Silas are interviewing Mike Hall, a Co-Founder of Anza, a company they spun out of Borrego, his and his brother's first venture. At Borrego, they developed software to streamline and improve the way they chose which solar panels to use for projects. Realizing...

In this episode, Silas and Somil chat with Ryan Gilliam, CEO of Fortera, a company focused on paving the way to zero CO2 cement backed by leading investors including Khosla Ventures and Temasek.  What makes Fortera so exciting is that they’ve successfully raised all the way to their Series B, making them one of not many later stage companies in climate. We talked about his experience fundraising,...

Today, we are speaking with a representative of the legendary Rockefeller Foundation. For those unaware, this foundation is one of the oldest well-organized institutions of its type and has been responsible for a massive number of efforts over the past 100 years.  Our guest is Thomas Belazis, Director of Innovative Finance. He runs their Climate & Impact Investing arm.  Some of the notable thi...

**Check out the new takeaways section at the end of the episode!!** In this episode, Somil and Silas chat with Zecca Lehn, GP of Responsibly Ventures, backing U.S. PreSeed startups in both Social and Sustainable Tech. He uses the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guidepost for his investments. We breakdown the specifics of his investing thesis including what is “customer love” and what...

Fast fashion is destroying the world. Imagine if we could make threads that are fully recyclable ... over and over... Well, that's what Oliver Shafaat is trying to do with Sci-Lume Labs.  They use agricultural feedstock, and are using low-heat methods so they aim to be able to achieve cost parity.  What they are working on is difficult, but would be world changing.  Enjoy the episode! 🌱🌎 --...

In this episode, Somil chats with Adam Fraser, CEO at Terraset, the “anti-GHG” 501c3. Philanthropy in climate is a hot topic – leading up to this episode we were getting questions left and right about the future of this space. And it’s because there’s seemingly so much money that could be in the space but isn’t yet.  That is the problem Adam and Terraset are trying to solve. It couldn’t have been...

 If you LOVE technology that allows for decarbonization TODAY, then Somil & Silas' conversation today with Lori Dunn from Optimus Technologies will interest you. Discover how Optimus is revolutionizing the transport sector by producing bolt-on systems that allow truck drivers to utilize 100% biodiesel and reduce their overall emissions by up to 90%. Learn from Lori how they are navigating...

In this episode, I chat with Ben Eidelson, Co-founder & GP of Stepchange, an early-stage venture fund that invests in product-led companies that will make a “step change”, pun intended, I’m guessing?, impact on climate.  When editing the episode, Alex, our executive producer, told us he could already tell one of our best episodes yet. I very much agree. This turned out to be the VC meets produ...