CleanTechies

What if there was a way to revolutionize data storage for companies and organizations while also promoting sustainability and transparency? Join us as we chat with Alan Ransil from Filecoin Green, an initiative by Protocol Labs that aims to do just that by utilizing the power of blockchain technology. Throughout the episode, we explore how Filecoin Green creates verifiable carbon credits, tracks t...

Ever wondered how CleanTech investments and business models are shaping the industry? In this episode, we're joined by Alex Mitchell, founder of Full Turn Capital, to explore the ins and outs of investing in the climate tech space. From understanding the potential of pre-seed and seed stage businesses to creating long-term competitive advantages, we discuss it all with Alex. Dive into the cha...

What happens when a successful restaurateur decides to tackle climate change? Tim Sperry, CEO and founder of Carbon Limit, joins us to share his incredible journey from the restaurant business to creating a carbon capture technology company. With a mix of passion and business acumen, Tim offers valuable advice on finding the right investors, joining industry organizations, and navigating the regul...

Ever wondered how we could tackle the global plastic waste crisis, especially with the increase in takeout packaging during the pandemic? Today, we're thrilled to have James Wilson, founder, and CEO of ReUser, join us to share his innovative solution that focuses on reusable containers for dining institutions. James opens up about his journey in discovering the issue of takeout packaging wast...

In this episode, Silas Mahner ( @silasmahner ) speaks with Manik Suri ( @ManikVSuri ) the Founder and CEO of Therma, an IoT device + software company that helps any organization using refrigeration to reduce cap ex and as a by-product, reduce the dirty energy assets on the grid. We cover his background, the problem, and the solution they are working on, and then go through building the business wi...

Today we speak with Ran Roth, the Co-Founder and CTO of Sensibo, an IoT device company that connects your AC units to various services to help you use your AC unit more efficiently. In today's conversation, we discuss how they got started, their experience raising funds back in the wake of the death of CleanTech 1.0, and the future of indoor climate control. Punchy episode with a lot of great...

In this episode, Silas Mahner ( @silasmahner ) speaks with the CEO of publicly traded, Regenx, Greg Pendura. Regenx is a metals recycling company recovering precious metals from catalytic converters and selling it on the market or providing the service directly to OEMs. Greg explains the problem they are solving, how they are solving it, the back story of the company, how they funded the project,...

In this episode Silas Mahner ( @silasmahner ) speaks with Andreas Lehner ( @lehner_a ) about what he's doing with his new company PowerBlocks to capture methane that is just being flared, using that energy to power data centers or bitcoin mining, how he got interested in Climate, how to build an MVP with a hardware business, a short discussion around AI and the energy grid, and how he stays f...

Today we have a really energetic (no pun intended) conversation with Andy Frank, the founder of Sealed. They are an energy efficiency company that pays for home infrastructure upgrades and then gets paid back over time by their customer. The more efficiency they produce, the more they make which creates a great incentive structure. We discussed a lot but the best part for me was going through how...

In this episode, Silas Mahner ( @silasmahner ) speaks with Anas Al Kassas the founder and CEO of INOVUES where they are helping solve heat loss for buildings. Their tech is essentially a retrofit solution to single-pane glass that can be achieved at scale. They are also partnering with other companies such as solar glass and tinting services to act as a platform for them to sell their tech. The ke...

Today we had a really fun, but also impactful, and very transparent conversation, one that is slightly different than a lot of the guests we've had on. Someone who is a lot earlier in her journey of building her company. I wanted to have her on as an opportunity to showcase the life of someone deep in the grind of building their startup with the hope to one day make a massive impact on climat...

Today we are joined by Ryan Begin. One of the founding members of Divert. Divert is building food waste to energy plants that have achieved the scale to become profitable, scalable, and impactful in combating climate change. This is a truly inspiring story as it took them about 13 years to get to the point of proving their technology and perfecting the business model in a way that they could then...

Today we are joined by the founder of Oceanid MRV, Ben Swainbank.  For context, carbon capture and the measurement of how much is captured is something pretty well solved in forestry and direct air capture. However, for oceanic capture, it is not. This presents a big dilemma as Oceanic Carbon Capture is widely regarded as the most scalable method to pull carbon out of the air at a gigaton scale. ...

Today we were joined by Susan Su. Susan is a Partner at Toba Capital which differentiates from many funds in that it only has one LP. That LP invests across a range of spaces which allows the Toba team to get special insight into other areas of investing which could affect their investments and existing portfolio companies.  Susan has to be one of the most genuine people I've had on the show....

Today we are joined by Nicola Rubini from the River Cleaning Project by Conai.  You may not know, but 80% of plastics that end up in the ocean are deposited there by rivers. Today we speak with Nicola about how they are trying to fix this problem given that rivers are conveniently a focused path of water.  The technology they have is pretty fascinating but what's more, is the nuances required...

Today we have a pretty interesting capital provider joining us. Ethan Goldsmith is an Investment Partner at Keyframe Capital and helped found TeraWatt Infrastructure (the fleet charging behemoth).  We went through the usual stuff around his background, early career, what they are doing, how they source deals, and their unique points but the core of this conversation in my opinion is really in thei...

Today we are joined by Chris Gray, the CTO of RENU Communities.  At it's simplest form, they are a PE Fund that is doing total retrofits on real estate to make it a sustainable building.  The more interesting aspects of what they are doing are,  they have an in-house set of experts that are able to help them integrate engineering knowledge with the financial modeling of the projects  they tak...

Today we are joined by the founder of Criaterra, Adital Ela. Adital is an industrial designer by education and profession who was seeking the potential to make fully circular building products. She was inspired to do this when visiting India she saw how clay Chai cups were used and then tossed to the ground to return to their original form.  After 12 years she then decided to set out to build Cria...

Super excited to share this with you. We've got someone who went to the same high school where Steve Jobs and Woz did back in the day. He then worked at Square on international expansion, went on to work with VC Legend Mike Maples, and eventually ended up as the Chief of Staff at Chris Sacca's, Lowercarbon Capital.  We are talking about Shawn Xu.  Shawn talked us through his journey to c...

If you are a bit of a shipping nerd like me, this is going to be a great episode.  We are joined by James Malley the co-founder of Paccurate where they are helping product shippers use smaller boxes so less air is shipped, resulting in fewer trucks to get the same products to your destination.  This is a juggernaut of a business as they are able to service ginormous companies with a very light sta...

Today we spoke with Joe Bushnell. I had met Joe before he launched Azollo so it is a pretty cool guest to have on since I got to hear where he was at prior to launch.  From Australia, he developed a certain attachment to the issue of climate change at a young age when wildfires destroyed his town and burned his school growing up. He went on to study sustainability in Uni. He then went into consult...

Today's topic is how to raise money for your ClimateTech Startup with Tommy Leep. He is the founder of Jetstream. A ClimateTech VC focused on investing in pre-seed ClimateTech companies.  Today's conversation focuses on three things.  First, some of his background, how he got interested in ClimateTech, how he got into VC, and some of the challenges in his career.  Second, we spoke about...

Today we have a dual guest episode with Husband & Wife duo, Steve & Beth McDaniel. They have a background in the paint and coatings industry where they have been finding ways to make paints and coatings do something other than just decorate and protect their surface.  Their latest innovation is a way to create surfaces that act as carbon capture the same way Blue Algae does. The surfaces c...

Interested in how we will have enough lithium over the next decades to support the energy and EV transition? Well, you can learn about a company solving this problem.  Enter EnergyX founded and run by Teague Egan. Teague had no previous experience in mining or chemistry but after seeing a huge gap in the market and one particular problem faced by a lithium reserve in Bolivia, he set out to see how...

Today we are joined by Olivia Pedersen the founder of Sustaio.  Olivia has a really incredible journey to building Sustaio. We were able to speak today about their technology, which is essentially a rewards platform for choosing sustainable products. This is a method for consumers to signal to corporates their interest in sustainable products.  One thing we also touched on was the difficulty many...