Starting a Climate Tech Newsletter

A little about myself first. I recently graduated college and moved to San Francisco, the proclaimed VC capital of the US. I’d been closely following the threat of Climate Change and the dire consequences it brings for a while now — from starting my high schools’ environmental club “Project Green” to organizing a Sustainability Hackathon in college. One of the first college classes I took was on Sustainable Finance, sparking my lightbulb moment:

Access to financing is the key driver to spurring innovation and achieving successful implementation of Climate Change solutions.

After moving to SF, I’ve witnessed the overflowing capital and brilliant minds driving technological innovation, all promising to make the world a better place, but day after day I see the money and noise flowing to yet another enterprise software platform, another mobile video app etc etc (how many Tik Toks do we need?). Fortunately, it seems venture capital is gradually trickling into the Climate Tech space, designated a “new hot space for investors in a warming planet” by TechCrunch.

In 2016, an investment coalition of billionaires including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, launched Breakthrough Energy Ventures to jumpstart the breakthrough, early stage technological ideas needed to combat Climate Change. Energy Impact Partners, a later growth-stage fund, raised a $400M fund in August 2019 partnering with utilities to invest in companies shaping the energy landscape of the future.

Climate Change has entered our global agenda, and I believe it’s only a matter of time before it enters mainstream investing. I’ve created this website and newsletter to document and support the rise of Climate Tech investing, as well as provide a platform to connect people interested in how innovation can combat Climate Change. For now, I will be targeting Climate Change-related investments in mainly the Energy, Food/ Agriculture, Transportation, Consumer, and Waste/ Manufacturing sectors but feel free to email me with your own input on what classifies as “Climate Tech”.

For longer and more informational posts, such as Climate Tech industry deep dives, I will be publishing right here on this blog. Climate Change is one of the most complex and pressing challenges of our time, and a critical piece of the solution is the acceleration of entrepreneurial innovation and intelligent capital. This is my call to action for the students, entrepreneurs, investors, businesses, and governments to step up their commitment to Climate innovation and action — let’s do this together.

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