New Wave.

Subscribe to the newsletter: New Wave | Hugo Rauch | Substack **** Listen now: Apple // Spotify // YouTube 🌊 The Inflection Point Nobody Noticed Why electrification, materials innovation, and better unit economics are reshaping climate VC. We’re joined by Sarah Sclarsic, General Partner & Co-Founder at Voyager Ventures, a transatlantic VC firm backing foundational innovations across energy, mater...

Subscribe to the newsletter: New Wave | Hugo Rauch | Substack **** 🌊 Mining Without Mines How plants could unlock the next wave of critical metals. We’re joined by Fabien , Co-Founder & CEO of Genomines , a company rethinking how the world sources nickel, not by digging deeper, but by growing smarter. In this episode, we dive into a radical idea at the heart of the energy transition: what if we c...

Subscribe to the newsletter: New Wave | Hugo Rauch | Substack **** 🌊 Building a Sovereign Copper Supply We’re joined by Katie Marsh , Co-Founder & CEO of Recupere Metals, a next-gen industrial company rethinking how copper is produced for electrification. Fresh off a €5M seed round closed in just 30 days, Katie shares how Recupere is turning scrap copper into high-performance electrical wires, wi...

Subscribe to the newsletter: New Wave | Hugo Rauch | Substack **** 🌊 Building Cities Without Breaking the System Why urban climate tech must be faster, better, and cheaper to truly scale. We’re joined by Jacob Bro , General Partner at 2150, one of Europe’s most thoughtful urban climate investors, fresh off the close of €210m Fund II. In this episode, we dive into what it really takes to fund the...

Subscribe to the newsletter: New Wave | Hugo Rauch | Substack **** 🌊 A VC Playbook for Industrial Biotech What it really takes to turn great biology into scalable, venture-backable companies. We’re joined by Joško Bobanović , Partner in Industrial Biotech at Sofinnova Partners, one of Europe’s most experienced investors at the intersection of biology, industry, and climate. In this episode, we di...

Subcribe to the newsletter: New Wave | Hugo Rauch | Substack **** Thank you to this week’s sponsor: Accelerating Impact - a non-profit advancing impact finance by mobilizing capital and running free accelerator programs for emerging fund managers. Join for expert coaching, training, financial support, and a strong community. Apply here . **** 🌊 Why Circularity Is the Real Climate Lever Why stayin...

Subcribe to the newsletter: New Wave | Hugo Rauch | Substack **** 🌊 Pricing Nature As An Asset Why the next wave of climate returns will be built on data, ecosystems, and risk We’re joined by Jahed Momand , General Partner at Cerulean Ventures , a pre-seed fund backing founders applying AI and software to the physical world, from nature and oceans to grids, steel, and supply chains. In this episo...

Thank you to this week’s sponsor: Accelerating Impact - a non-profit advancing impact finance by mobilizing capital and running free accelerator programs for emerging fund managers. Join for expert coaching, training, financial support, and a strong community. Apply here . *** 🌊 Hardware Is Hard. That’s the Point. What it really takes to fund, build, and scale climate hardware in Europe We’re joi...

Thank you to this week’s sponsor: Accelerating Impact - a non-profit advancing impact finance by mobilizing capital and running free accelerator programs for emerging fund managers. Join for expert coaching, training, financial support, and a strong community. Apply here . *** 🌊 How To Commercialize Science Why Europe’s world-class research rarely becomes global companies, and how to fix it. We’r...

Sign up to New Wave's newsletter . *** This week on New Wave Weekly : 👉 AI won’t magically invent new materials AlphaFold worked because biology had great data. Inorganic materials don’t. Sparse datasets, missing thermodynamics, and poor characterization remain the biggest blockers. 👉 The real moat is synthesis, not models From rare-earth-free magnets to catalysts, value is created in the lab: m...

Thank you to this week’s sponsor: Accelerating Impact - a non-profit advancing impact finance by mobilizing capital and running free accelerator programs for emerging fund managers. Join for expert coaching, training, financial support, and a strong community. Apply here . *** 🌊 A New Swell Has Arrived How the European Investment Fund is shaping the next generation of climate VCs. We’re joined by...

🌊 Simon Belka on fixing the grid. Why long-duration storage and microgrids may define the next energy system. We’re joined by Simon Belka, Co-Founder of Shifted Energy, a long-duration energy storage startup building compressed-air systems for the decentralized grid. In this episode, we dive into one of the biggest paradoxes in clean energy: we’re producing more cheap renewable electricity than e...

🌊 Eglantine Dupuy on what the data says about European climate tech. Why deep tech is winning, VC is retreating, and corporates are stepping in. We’re joined by Eglantine Dupuy, Research Associate at Dealroom.co, where she tracks Europe’s climate and deep tech ecosystem through one of the most comprehensive data platforms in venture. In this episode, we take a hard look at European climate tech i...

🌊 David Ferguson on pilot-to-scale partnerships. Why corporate-startup partnerships fail and how to design the ones that actually work. We’re joined by David Ferguson, Head of Innovation (UK) at EDF, a 20-year energy veteran working at the intersection of climate, technology, and large-scale infrastructure. In this episode, we dive into why corporates love pilots but struggle to scale them, and u...

🌊 Marc Lechantre on industrial decarbonization. We’re joined by Marc Lechantre, Partner at Axeleo Capital’s Green Tech Industry Fund. After 15 years in the automotive industry, Marc now backs the founders building the factories, materials, and energy systems that actually move the climate needle. In this episode, we dive into industrial climate tech, and unpack what it really takes to finance, sc...

Sam Goodall on Europe’s Climate Tech “Supercluster” In Paris, I sat down with Sam Goodall, CEO of Cambridge Cleantech and co-founder of the Climate Tech Supercluster. We unpacked a question I kept hearing: Why does Europe lead in climate innovation, but fall behind on scale? Sam’s take is refreshingly clear: Climate tech is spread too thin. We miss an obvious “Silicon Valley” to go to. That’s why...

Makesense just closed its €25M pre-seed fund : So we sat down with Marion Schuppe to unpack what it really takes to build an impact-first VC from a nonprofit DNA. 👉 Fundraising: fun, exciting.. exhausting What does it take for a nonprofit-rooted team to win over LPs and triple their fund size? More trust-building, cooperation, and resilience than most people think. 👉 Why pre-seed impact investin...

This week on New Wave Weekly: 👉 Why food & ag still scare generalist VCs Despite being a $8T industry employing more people than any other, exits are small, timelines are long, and the science is heavy. So why does capital hesitate? And what are they missing? 👉 Where the real opportunities are in food tech From ingredients with 1% inclusion rates, to functional foods, to GLP-1 alternatives, to s...

🌊 The Excellence of Machines, Inside Aris Machina’s $10.7M Pre-Seed How do you build an agentic operating system for manufacturing, and why now? We’re joined by Siddharth “Sid” Khullar, Co-Founder & CEO of Aris Machina, the company building an agentic OS for complex manufacturing, starting with batteries. Sid previously led Software & AI at Northvolt, where he experienced firsthand the success an...

Thank you to this week’s sponsor: Accelerating Impact - a non-profit advancing impact finance by mobilizing capital and running free accelerator programs for emerging fund managers. Join for expert coaching, training, financial support, and a strong community. Apply here . *** 🌊 A New Swell Has Arrived Inside Better Society Capital’s approach to returns, impact, and the next gen of funds. We’re j...

This week on New Wave Weekly: 👉 Aris Machina lands a monster “pre-seed” Founded by two former Northvolt leaders — including Peter Carlsson — Aris Machina wants to build the agent OS for manufacturing, unifying messy factory data into a global optimization layer. But can you really standardize manufacturing when every plant is different? 👉 AI for Manufacturing: hype cycle or real inflection? Euro...

We’re joined by Alex Bakir, Partner at Norrsken Evolve, an operator-turned-investor who has built and scaled companies across Silicon Valley and Europe before launching one of the continent’s most distinctive early-stage climate funds. In this episode, we dive into why Europe’s climate tech story needs a new foundation, one rooted in productive capacity, supply-chain sovereignty, and operator-led...

This week on New Wave Weekly: 👉 Einride’s $1.8B IPO: A look inside the price The Swedish freight-tech giant is heading to the NYSE via SPAC at a 40× revenue multiple. Is the market ready for a Tesla-for-freight, or is this déjà vu of the SPAC boom? 👉 Vertical integration vs. “just pick a lane” Einride builds hardware, software, autonomous systems, logistics optimization, everything. Too much sta...

Today on New Wave Weekly: Sightline Climate just released the Globalization in climate tech report (download it here ). I sat down with Julia Attwood, Head of Research at Sightline, to chat about the key takeaways for European investors. 👉 Europe is committed to climate tech, but still missing the big checks Europe matches the US in number of deals and early-stage activity… so why are growth-stag...

We’re joined by Hampus Jakobsson, Partner at Pale Blue Dot, longtime founder, operator, and one of Europe’s most prolific early-stage investors. In this episode, we dive into what it means to be a “five” in agency, how great teams form, why climate became unavoidable for him, and how Pale Blue Dot built an unconventional fund model that actually works for founders. In our conversation, we covered:...