Entrepreneurs for Impact (Dr. Chris Wedding)

Led by CEO Phil Croskey, MD Energy Advisors helps residential, commercial, government, and industrial clients reduce their energy cost and implement energy efficiency programs. To learn more visit their website.

Below are two excerpts from the episode.

Phil spoke about his upbringing saying, "I was born and raised in Cleveland Ohio in the 1970s in what, looking back on it, was a largely red-lined African American community. I’ll never forget the day my mother got laid off from her job at the hospital. Losing that job really hurt her, because a lot of her self worth attached to her professional life. From that moment on, I knew I never wanted to be dependent on a job, recognizing that they come and go."

Speaking to the importance of investing in client education Phil highlighted an early customer experience, "I’ll never forget one of our early conversations with a large commercial real estate manager where we set up a meeting, explained how we could add value and reduce their electricity bill, and by the end, she stood up and thanked us for educating her in a manner that helped her better do her job. This was one of our earliest lessons in the value of investing in consumer education."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

ZERO is a weekly newsletter about climate finance, startups, and personal development. In this issue, we deliver the spoken podcast version, which covers the following: Climate tech VC tops $17B last year, 1 trillion reasons to love green infrastructure, climate CEO interview with David Energy, and the Iron Man invests in bamboo toilet paper.

For more trends, check out other issues of our free weekly newsletter ZERO: Climate Finance via Entrepreneurs for Impact: https://zeronewsletter.substack.com

Led by CEO Kevin Schulte, GreenSpark Solar is a distributed solar project developer and contractor based in Rochester, New York. The company has consistently been one of Rochester's fastest-growing businesses and continues to expand to date with project development capabilities ranging from residential solar installations to commercial-scale projects for which the company provides engineering procurement and construction services. To learn more visit the company's website.

Kevin summarized GreenSpark's business saying, "GreenSpark Solar is a certified B Corporation and solar energy development/installation company based in Rochester, New York. We do a variety of distributed solar projects ranging from residential projects, of which we will contract 150-200 deals this year, to small business projects, to larger-scale projects for which we have an in-house engineering procurement and construction team. We will do about 50 MW of those projects this year. At our core, we are builders, and we’re building solar at scale in the larger Rochester area."

Kevin talked about his path to cleantech entrepreneurship saying, "I have always had the overarching intention of working for the benefit of others. I started college as a biotechnology and premed student with an interest in epidemiology. However, in my first college class, my professor showed a pictograph of the greenhouse gas effect. It immediately became clear to me that this was a very big problem that I wanted to work on. I changed my major and studied economics, public policy, and energy system design. After college, I sent a resume and cover letter to every company on the American Wind Energy Association webpage and got a job in the industry. In 2002 after a couple of years of working in the industry, my college friends and I decided to start a business. That business has evolved from a consultancy to the nation’s largest distributed wind installer, to a solar and storage company today."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

REsurety delivers data-driven solutions for the clean energy economy and the tools to identify value and manage risks from clean energy investments.

Lee Taylor is the Co-Founder and CEO of REsurety. Since founding REsurety in 2012 to commercialize research he conducted at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Mr. Taylor has built a rapidly growing company, gained institutional financing, and attracted top-notch talent, advisors, and directors. Today, REsurety’s products are not only award-winning, but are redefining the way clean energy buyers and sellers are thinking about and managing risk. Under Mr. Taylor’s stewardship, REsurety has amassed contracts supporting more than 5,000 MW of renewable energy generation capacity and counts many of the U.S. — if not the world’s — largest companies as customers and partners, including Microsoft, Invenergy, Capital Power, Southern Company, Nephila Climate, and Allianz.

Mr. Taylor holds an MBA from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar (awarded for academic achievement) and recipient of the Lt. Walter Jacobs Memorial Prize (awarded for intellectual leadership). He also holds Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Biology from the University of Virginia.

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way?
• Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

Closing

• Do you have any requests, announcements, or final advice for our listeners?

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PODCAST HOST:

The parent company of the Climate Torch podcast is Entrepreneurs for Impact.

We are the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Brad Feld has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. He is the Cofounder of Foundry, Mobius Ventures, and Intensity Ventures. He is also the author of eight books and cocreator of Techstars, a leading startup accelerator that has accepted about 3,000 companies into its accelerator programs with a combined market capitalization over $70B.

Foundry manages over $3B in assets and invests in startups and venture capital funds. Their approach is characterized by long-term thinking and a "give first" philosophy. They have 70 active investments, 100 general partners, 45 partner funds, and 1,900 Foundry network companies. Their sample climate investments include VC funds (USV, Moxxie Ventures, and Lowercarbon Capital) and startups (Running Tide, Sofar).

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What is your investment focus — e.g., sector, stage, geography, check size? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

The 2040 Fund manages philanthropic capital for the 2040 Foundation and its founder, Jay Faison. Investments include private and publicly listed securities focused on climate adaptation and resilience. The 2040 Fund The Fund focuses on water systems and technology, the future of food, and energy transition. They plan to spend down all of its assets by the year 2040 maximizing impact in the near term.

Mark is also a board member at PosiGen, investment committe member at Upwell Water, and former SVP at Bank of America.

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 75+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $20B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Mark - ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markbruinooge⁠ 

Upwell Water - ⁠https://www.water.llc⁠ 

Congruent Ventures - ⁠https://www.congruentvc.com⁠ 

First Street Foundation - ⁠https://firststreet.org⁠ 

Elemental Excelerator - ⁠https://elementalexcelerator.com⁠

Trellis Climate - ⁠https://www.primecoalition.org/programs/trellis-climate⁠ 

Slow Productivity - ⁠https://calnewport.com/my-new-book-slow-productivity⁠ 

Sloww - ⁠https://www.sloww.co⁠

The Billionaire Who Wasn't - ⁠https://shorturl.at/efhn7 

Hydrow - ⁠https://hydrow.com

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

Led by co-founders Jeremy Greven and Laura Zizzo, Manifest Climate is a building a climate intelligence platform to help companies better understand, manage, and communicate climate risk.  To learn more about the TCFD standards that Manifest Climate looks to broadly implement visit their website.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

Laura highlighted the company's mission and product offerings saying, "Manifest Climate is a climate intelligence platform for business. We help customers translate climate so that they can better understand it, manage it, and disclose it to investors. We help clients communicate climate risk to investors and internally within their companies so they can make decisions that enhance business resiliency. We want to take climate out of the sustainability silo and put it into the organizational framework."

Jeremy spoke to the company's evolution saying, "The company and its product offering have evolved with market demands. The company was born out of Mantle 314, a management consultancy company working with big financial institutions globally. It eventually became clear that boardrooms across the world were demonstrating a common need for better information concerning the management of climate. However, the combination of commonality and impact at scale makes this problem uniquely suited for a software solution. Ultimately we are bringing a “SaaS plus” model to the market where we can leverage technology to build upon the experiences and insights of subject matter experts on our team that have over five years of experience working with corporate clients in the climate space. In addition to the technology layer, we can offer a higher-touch service with custom reporting broken down by business lines as well as workshops where management teams can engage with Q&A and get one-on-one time with subject matter experts on our team."

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Led by CEO and Co-founder Dr. Shreya Dave, Via Separations is an MIT spinout enabling industrial process efficiency with novel chemistries that allow manufacturing facilities to slash energy consumption while making more product. 

Targeting the 12% of US energy consumption that is wasted each year separating chemical compounds with heat, Via Separations reduces the load of the process by 90%, electrifies the most energy-intensive step in chemical production, and generates additional revenue for the customer. Today, Via is deploying its technology in pilot trials at pulp and paper facilities to eliminate 500 million metric tons of CO2 by 2050.

Via's investors and partners include Prime Impact Fund, Safar Partners, The Engine, Embark Ventures, ARPA-E, the National Science Foundation, and Greentown Labs.

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way?
• Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

My guest today is Sandeep Nijhawan, the Cofounder and CEO of Electra.

Electra is decarbonizing ironmaking for green steel production using intermittent renewable energy and low-grade iron ores, and producing higher-quality steel at the same time. Backed by $85M of VC and corporate VC capital, they will do all this at zero cost premium to existing steel manufacturing.

In addition, Sandeep is the former:

• President of AquaHydrex, which was focused on developing a novel electrolyzer for the hydrogen economy
• Operating Partner for True North Venture Partners
• President of Staq Energy, a distributed energy storage solutions developer

In this episode, we talked about:

• Their new partnership with Nucor, the largest steel manufacturer in the U.S.
• How he transitioned from a PhD in mechanical engineering to leading energy tech startups
• Why his “midlife crisis” led to the clarity to build novel energy solutions among small teams of bonafide geeks
• The importance of producing green steel at 60 degrees Celsius instead of 1,600 degrees
• How they balanced strategic and financial investors, ignoring conventional wisdom in the process
• The ways in which steel plants can get access to their solution as an OpEx, instead of just as a CapEx
• The prioritization of self, family, and team – not the reverse order – and this is anti-selfish
• Perspectives on really knowing the “why” in order to allow the “how” to be easier
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy.

And give Sandeep and Electra a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our two offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Bryan Hassin, CEO of DexMat, a next-gen climate tech materials company that transforms carbon from an expensive environmental problem into high-value, high-performance nanomaterials, targeting 2-3 gigatons of GHGs reduced through its solutions.

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In addition, Bryan is also:

- Former co-founder and CEO of Third Derivative, the world's largest climate tech accelerator, which has catalyzed $500M+ of investment in 100+ gigaton-potential climate tech startups

- Former Entrepreneur In Residence at RMI

- Serial entrepreneur with $350M+ of exits to date

- Independent Director for Pyrophyte Acquisition Corp., a climate-focused SPAC with a $210M market cap

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🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- Why this company stood out from the 2,000+ he reviewed while at Third Derivative

- The role of $20M of non-dilutive capital into his venture

- The importance of bigass goals

- Not being the smartest person in the room (because if you are, then you’re in the wrong room)

- Playing to win versus playing not to lose

- Hypothesis testing and its role in his startup journeys

- Why “drop-in replacement” are magical

- The distinction between the first and the best markets to go after

- How his sabbaticals played a role in his career

- His favorite non-business, non-climate books and why they matter to climate tech

- Why we need to ask, “What would need to be true in order for XYZ to be possible?”

- And lots more

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🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Bryan and DexMat a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: https://entrepreneursforimpact.com

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Rohan Puri, CEO of Stable.

Stable maximizes EV charging station ROI with strategic placement and pricing solutions.

Rohan brings experience from MIT, Harvard, and TechStars. Hope you enjoy it!

And give Rohan and Stable a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

🌐 LINKS:

Stable – https://stable.auto/ Rohan – https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohanspuri/

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🎙️ PODCAST TOPICS:

How 70% of EV fast chargers are underperforming financially. Why static pricing at EV charging stations makes no sense. How 15% vs. 5% should inform ideal charging goals for chargers. Their AI tool for optimizing charger location for quicker paybacks to investors. Deliberately keeping their team small. Why you shouldn’t sell software to software companies. Relentless focus.

And lots more!

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🙏 QUICK FAVOR:

Please leave a review or rating on your podcast player.

It really means a lot, and I read every one.

This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here.

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🌎 ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS FOR IMPACT:

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Live online course about startup capital raising (coaching, peer feedback): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/V6xcB⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

DIY course about startup capital raising (170 slides, 70-item library, 250-investor list): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/QCcl5⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

HData provides software solutions that streamline regulatory reporting and data management for the energy industry, focusing on utilities and regulatory bodies. They are a Techstars startup with two rounds of VC funding.

Before HData, Hudson served as an attorney and advisor at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), advocating for data transparency in financial and regulatory disclosures. He also founded the Data Coalition, a nonprofit organization focused on advancing data transparency in government. He is widely recognized for promoting open data standards and leveraging technology to improve regulatory compliance and efficiency.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways.

1. How they turn unstructured energy regulatory data into business intelligence
2. The benefits of SAFE vs. convertible notes for founders
3. Why most crises are not existential threats
4. His recovery from alcoholism and what it means for his company culture

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

HData - https://www.hdata.us/

Hudson - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hudsonhollister/

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 85+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $30B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

My guest today is Bessie Schwartz, the Co-founder & CEO of Cloud to Street.

Cloud to Street is the leading flood mapping platform designed to protect the world’s most climate-vulnerable communities.

By harnessing global satellites, advanced science, and community intelligence, they monitor worldwide floods in near real-time and remotely analyze local flood exposure at a click of a button.

Their mission is to ensure that all vulnerable governments finally access the high-quality information they need to prepare for and respond to increasing catastrophes.

In addition, she is…

• A Strategist - Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
• An Echoing Green Climate Fellow
• Research partner - Data-Pop Alliance - a global coalition on Big Data and development created by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, MIT Media Lab, and the Overseas Development Institute

In this episode, we talked about the following:

• The relevance of her work to the recent flooding in Pakistan, leaving ⅓ of the country underwater
• How flooding is the #1 climate-related weather impact
• The history of their company 10 years ago in partnership with Google
• The difference between information and motivation to make the right decision
• Their business model of aligning incentives to help insurance companies underwrite more policies that accurately capture flood risk
• The need to invest in climate adaption – which BoA estimates to be a $2T market in a few years – and not just climate mitigation
• How they use 17 satellites, stratospheric balloon imaging, and drones to measure every square foot of the earth every day
• What parametric flood insurance is a breakthrough for climate risk management
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy!

And give Bessie and Cloud to Street a shoutout on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Led by founder Komal Ahmad Copia is striving to solve the world's dumbest problem in food waste and hunger by creating a platform to connect food oversupplied businesses with food-hungry nonprofits. The company is also developing predictive analytics tools to reduce food waste for restaurants and large food suppliers. 

Komal summarized Copia's mission and business saying, "Copia is trying to solve “the world’s dumbest problem.” In a world with so much technology, innovation, and abundance, issues like hunger should not exist. The hunger problem is a logistics problem, not a scarcity problem. Copia is a platform that connects businesses with excess food to nonprofits that are in need at just the right time when these nonprofits can make use of donated food."

Komal highlighted Copia's approach to scale saying, "We serve the United States and Canada. We have partnered with Doordash and Postmates, and we have created a webhook integration that automatically notifies a driver for one of these services when a business requests that food be picked up. These partnerships provide tremendous scale with 500,000 drivers throughout the United States, making us geographically agnostic."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Ryan Jeffery, the Senior Managing Director for gener8tor Sustainability, a leading accelerator investing and supporting startups at the forefront of our climate crisis.

They invest $100k in startups in their 12-week programs.

Over the last ten years, they’ve made investments in 1,000 startups, which have gone on to raise $1.4B.

In addition, Ryan is the:

• Founder of Ignite, a diverse and dynamic leadership community in Chicago

• Founding Partner at Survival Ventures, which is investing, advising and growing ventures that preserve and protect our planet

• Mentor at Impact Engine

• And advisor to many more impact startups

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🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

• His delightfully provocative LinkedIn post that starts with this zinger: “If you're a climate tech investor sitting on your hands waiting for better market conditions before deploying more capital, then you're not a real climate tech investor. The climate doesn't care about market conditions.”

• How he views fiduciary duty in light of the urgency for tackling climate change

• Why they’re one of the world’s biggest startup accelerators that no one has ever heard of

• How they pick 5 out of 500 startups to join each accelerator cohort

• Lessons learned from his 3 prior ventures and investing in dozens of startups

• Why 93% of their investments take place outside of California, Massachusetts, and New York

• What the top founders do well – e.g., laser-focused on customer needs, sending out monthly update lists to “friends of the company”

• Why Brandi Carlil’s song “The Eye” is relevant to startups and parenting

• And lots more

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👍 Quick favor: Please leave a review or 5-star rating on your podcast player. This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here. 🙏

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🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate founders, CEOs, and investors scale faster via the #1 peer group community in North America. Our invite-only cohorts grow through monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching calls. Today’s highly vetted members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management. ⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

And here's our weekly newsletter — A 2-minute summary of climate tech startups, impact investing, and leading with purpose (and a sense of humor). ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⭐ My guest today is me. That’s right. No guest. Just 10 or so lessons learned from my work in capital raising for climate ventures as a private equity investor, founder, board member, and investment banker.

If you liked these tips, share them with a founder friend.

I know it's rough out there raising capital right now. But remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t stress too much about your 1-year goals. Try to think about the 10-year plan instead. #EasyToSayHardToDo

---

🙏 Quick favor:

Please leave a review or rating on your podcast player.

This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here.

---

🌎 To boost your growth in climate tech, Entrepreneurs for Impact can help you with...

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠ 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠

Live online course about startup capital raising (coaching, peer feedback): ⁠⁠https://t.ly/V6xcB⁠⁠

DIY course about startup capital raising (170 slides, 70-item library, 250-investor list): ⁠⁠https://t.ly/QCcl5⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

⭐ In today’s episode, instead of talking about business and finance, we will concentrate on the people side of growing a climate tech business. We’ll listen to five CEOs talk about advice they'd give their younger self, recommendations for their favorite books and podcasts, and the habits that keep them healthy and focused on this startup journey.

If you like this episode, then consider this part 1 of more like it in the months to come.

And shout out to Bill S. for his recommendation for this kind of compilation.

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#1

Naman Trivedi, Cofounder and CEO of WattBuy, which helps homeowners find the best electricity, solar plans, and more – all at the lowest price: Using just a home’s address, they crunch the data to recommend personalized bundles from the most trusted providers. To date, they’ve helped procure 20 gigawatt-hours of clean power while saving customers over four million dollars.

#2

Jacqueline van den Ende, CEO at Carbon Equity, a fintech platform that seeks to power the world's most impactful climate technology solutions with retail capital: In under two years, they’ve mobilized $120M across 450+ high net worth and mass affluent individuals to invest in professionally managed VC and private equity climate funds.

#3

John Tough, Managing Partner at Energize Ventures, a leading climate software investor that manages $1.2 Billion across two strategies: venture capital and growth equity.

#4

Sarah Richardson, co-founder and CEO of MicroByre, which "makes pets out of bacteria": They domesticate naturally occurring bacteria and introduce them to industry. They enable customers to efficiently produce bio-derived chemistries at or below current petrochemical economics. Newly cooperative bacteria can replace ancient biomass (petrochemicals) with renewable biomass (lawn clippings) efficiently and economically.

#5

Bryan Hassin, CEO of DexMat, a next-gen climate tech materials company that transforms carbon from an expensive environmental problem into high-value, high-performance nanomaterials: And he brings 100s of millions of dollars in prior startup exits to this important problem.

---

👍 Quick favor: Please leave a review or 5-star rating on your podcast player. This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here. 🙏

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate founders, CEOs, and investors scale faster via the #1 peer group community in North America. Our invite-only cohorts grow through monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching calls. Today’s highly vetted members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management. ⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

And here's our weekly newsletter — A 2-minute summary of climate tech startups, impact investing, and leading with purpose (and a sense of humor). ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Led by Managing Director and Cofounder, Kate Frucher, The Clean Fight is a flagship not-for-profit accelerator, that identifies and scales the top growth-stage climate tech companies from around the world that are looking to expand into New York. The current focus is easy-to-adopt solutions that bring the environmental, economic, and health benefits of deep decarbonization to non-luxury buildings.

Kate Frucher is an experienced executive who's launched, operated, and scaled technology and services businesses from startup to $100 million+ multiple times. Adept at diving into new industries and driving innovation and rapid growth, her track record includes having built and led product, design, engineering, innovation, operations, business development, enterprise sales, account management, marketing, people/HR, legal, finance, and other functions. In addition, she brings to her startup cohorts experience in crafting business and product strategies, growing high-performing teams and cultures, developing new organizational capabilities, fundraising, and building boards. She's a life-long social entrepreneur who’s driven innovation and reform in government and nonprofits.

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What is your investment focus — e.g., sector, stage, geography, check size? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• Give us some examples of recent investments that you’re excited about. 
• Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like?

Personal

• Tell us about 1-2 tips you’d give your “younger” self in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact.
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

Closing

• Do you have any requests, announcements, or final advice for our listeners?

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PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

Atmos is a climate fintech company offering savings and checking accounts to help fund the clean energy transition.

Ravi is a 25-year veteran of the clean energy industry, material science engineer, and serial entrepreneur.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. Why the $6 trillion mandate means that every lender should be a climate lender
2. How they’ve crafted financial products to move tens of millions of dollars into clean energy installations
3. How he almost got diabetes from working too much on his business
4. What he means by "experience is what you get when you don't get what you want"

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Atmos - https://www.joinatmos.com

Ravi - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravimikkelsen

Huberman Lab podcast - https://www.hubermanlab.com/podcast

Tim Ferriss podcast - https://tim.blog/podcast

Peter Attia’s Drive podcast - https://peterattiamd.com/podcast

Canary Media podcast - https://www.canarymedia.com/podcasts

Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity (book) - https://shorturl.at/df2u5

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 90+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $30B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

Led by CEO Mo Vargas, BayoTech provides on-site hydrogen supply for industrial customers at an industry-leading carbon intensity and economic rate using a pay-as-you-go model that reduces upfront capital costs.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"Our basic goal is to provide low to zero-carbon hydrogen at the cheapest cost possible. We primarily offer this through a service called BayoGaaS wherein we build, own, operate, and finance projects and then sell that to the end-user which reduces the upfront capital cost to the customer. Our onsite generators have a lower carbon intensity than many of the traditional offerings such as electrolyzers due to the reduction in transportation and conversion losses."

"The two primary concerns are carbon intensity and cost. On the carbon intensity front, customers are often overwhelmed by ESG concerns and the need to adopt cleaner solutions. There are many cool applications of clean technology and hydrogen, but the notion that an industrial customer needs to get into the hydrogen production business can be daunting. We simplify this with our BayoGaaS offering. On the cost side, we know that the industry is primarily motivated and moved by the least cost solution. We can produce hydrogen at less than $2 per kilogram, which is far lower than the majority of the industry and makes our offering extremely compelling to customers."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Coreshell can reduce the cost of batteries by roughly 25% and improve drive range by about 40% by producing metallurgical silicon anodes to replace graphite. Their collaborators include some of the biggest names in the automotive industry and the largest merchant producer of silicon metal in the Western world.

Jonathan is a UC Berkeley graduate in chemical engineering with 12 years of prior experience at New Logic Research as well as Membrane Technolgy and Research. He’s also a Climate CEO Fellow with us at EFI.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways.

1. How they raised 10% of the capital of peers to reach the same milestones
2. Why their metallurgical silicon anode can be 20x more cost-efficient than today’s current lithium-ion battery technology
3. How he reduces stress by facing mortality in safe but adventurous rock climbing
4. Why we should focus on process vs. outcomes, and how this relates to the difference between pain vs. suffering

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Coreshell - https://www.coreshell.com/

Jonathan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-tan-coreshell

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 85+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $50B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

⭐ My guest today is Joshua Goldberg, cofounder and CEO of Sunstone Credit.

Sunstone Credit provides flexible financing solutions for commercial solar loans with activity in 30 states and 400+ solar partners.

Joshua is also a former cofounder and executive at Sunlight Financial, Astrum Solar, and Legends of Learning.

--

🌐 LINKS:

Sunstone Credit - https://www.sunstonecredit.com/

Joshua - https://www.sunstonecredit.com

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🎙️ PODCAST TOPICS:

Their $1B in loan applications. $21M in corporate capital raised. Why solar leases are stupid. How solar is sold at the kitchen table. Their activity in the $40k to $5M solar size range. The speed of their loan process averaging just 1-4 weeks.

Please give Joshua and Sunstone Credit a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or X by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

🙏 QUICK FAVOR:

Please leave a review or rating on your podcast player. It means a lot, and I read every one.

This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here.

---

🌎 ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS FOR IMPACT:

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠ 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

⭐ My guest today is Jason Aramburu, CEO of Climate Robotics.

Climate Robotics is a team of roboticists, soil scientists, and AI researchers developing advanced robotics to help sequester carbon via biochar, capitalizing on the fact that the Earth’s soils contain more than 14 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere. 

Jason is a serial entrepreneur and investor interested in new applications of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, Sensors and Trustless Computing to large industries such as agriculture, mining, logistics, energy, health and climate change mitigation. 

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🌐 LINKS:

Jason - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonaramburu

Climate Robotics - https://www.climaterobotics.com/

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🎙️ PODCAST TOPICS:

His current company’s ties back to his Gates Foundation-funded biochar company founded in 2006. How they’re tackling the 50% of total costs involved in transporting biochar from the site of biomass to the agricultural field. Why biochar is a permanent carbon sequestration solution, despite common misperceptions. The price per ton of various carbon removal solutions. Crop outperformance when the soil is enhanced with biochar. What it means when we say: “Name it and you can tame it.”

And lots more!

---

🙏 QUICK FAVOR:

Please leave a review or rating on your podcast player.

This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here.

---

🌎 ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS FOR IMPACT:

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Live online course about startup capital raising (coaching, peer feedback): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/V6xcB⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

DIY course about startup capital raising (170 slides, 70-item library, 250-investor list): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/QCcl5⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

⭐ In today's super short holiday episode, I cover these 5 topics:

(1) 200 climate tech experts define top investment trends. (2) U.S. Department of Energy gives guidance on climate tech investment readiness. (3) The formula for happiness: Just two variables. (4) Carl Rogers: Accept reality before you can change it. (5) Nightly gratitude challenge

--- 🙏 QUICK FAVOR:

Please leave a review or rating on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player.

This helps more listeners discover the world-changing climate tech CEOs and investors I interview here.

--- 🌎 ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS FOR IMPACT:

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠ 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Live online course about startup capital raising (coaching, peer feedback): ⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/V6xcB⁠⁠⁠

DIY course about startup capital raising (170 slides, 70-item library, 250-investor list): ⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/QCcl5⁠⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

Led by Claire Schlemme Renewal Mill reduces food waste by upcycling the byproduct of plant-based milk to create high-quality Okara flour and baking mixes. The company's Okara flour is used in products made by other plant-based food makers while its baking mixes are sold directly through its website.

Claire summarized Renewal Mill's business saying, "Renewal Mill is an upcycle food company. We upcycle byproducts from food manufacturing into superfood ingredients and premium pantry staples. We are currently working with the pulp residue from plant-based milk. This pulp material is nutritious and has a lot of fiber and protein. This leftover pulp is often wasted and certainly not processed and upcycled at scale as we are attempting to do. For soy milk residue, we dry out the pulp and produce it as “okara,” which has an East Asian heritage. For oat milk, we perform a similar process and brand the material as upcycled oat protein flour. Our goal is to ultimately move beyond the plant-based milk space and continue to capture otherwise wasted sources of fiber and protein. There are numerous opportunities to do this in the tomato and potato spaces in particular."

Claire spoke to the importance of mission alignment in seeking outside capital saying, "For the first two years, the company was funded through grants from both Yale and the Closed Loop Foundation. We recently received funding from Kroger as part of their Zero Hunger Initiative. We have also employed more traditional forms of capital raises with convertible and SAFE notes. Our funding sources have been mostly in the impact space. When we first incorporated the company, we did so as a public-benefit corporation, which I believe has been powerful in filtering our potential investor list to the most mission-aligned subset. We have received funding from traditional waste-to-value investors as well as an investor that focuses on plant-based food systems."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Led by Wanona Satcher, Mahkers Studio builds residential and commercial spaces from used shipping containers. The company is currently focused on accelerating the speed of deployment while dramatically reducing the total cost of construction with its modular construction process in order to address the affordable housing crisis.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"Mahkers Studio is a green manufacturing and design-build company. We creatively reuse shipping containers as a modular real estate solution. We are able to customize these containers as residential and community spaces with the most impact coming from their ability to serve as affordable housing solutions. We view our solutions as an improvement, in terms of material and land-use efficiency, within the traditional construction industry."

"Our fundamental goal is to address the affordable housing crisis. In order to do so, we needed a cost-effective and abundant material that could be constructed in a more efficient and localized manner. These constraints naturally lead to shipping containers that are already existing and consequently cheaper. We are also able to achieve benefits in terms of carbon reduction, structural integrity, and land-use efficiency."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Mitra Chem is solving three problems: 

1. Shifting the Western electric vehicle and energy storage industries' battery portfolio towards safer, cheaper, and cleaner iron-based battery cathodes
2. Building production capacity in the USA to offset production asset overconcentration in China
3. Accelerating by >90% the lab-to-market timeline for a portfolio of battery materials through a proprietary machine learning advantage

Vivas Kumar is the Cofounder and CEO of Mitra Chem. Previously, he was a senior manager in Tesla's Battery Team, where he was the lead commercial negotiator for strategic contracts representing billions of dollars in aggregate multi-year spend along the battery materials supply chain (the company's largest BOM category). Throughout his career, he has conducted commercial negotiations and handled partnerships with executive and senior government counterparties in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific. Vivas earned degrees in engineering at Rice University and an MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?
• What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned about funding your growth with outside investors?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Co-led by Cofounder and Managing Partner Abe Yokell, Congruent Ventures is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco. They focus on sustainability challenges and investing early across hardware, software, enterprise, consumer, deep technology, fin-tech, and business model innovation, with 36+ positive-impact investments to date. 

Abe oversees Congruent’s investments in AMP Robotics, Blueprint Power, OptimoRoute, For Days, Leap, Omnidian, Amply Power, Raptor Maps, Span.IO, Vector, and Phase Genomics. 

He has over 15 years of investment experience, having invested across sectors and business models, and was responsible for opening RockPort Capital’s West Coast office in 2007. 

Abe graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Economics, with minors in Chemistry and Biology. 

When not serving as entertainment for his young children, Abe enjoys hiking, cycling, skiing, travel, and pointing out solar roofs to whoever happens to be nearby.

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What is your investment focus — e.g., sector, stage, geography, check size? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• Give us some examples of recent investments that you’re excited about.
• Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like?

Personal

• Tell us about 1-2 tips you’d give your “younger” self in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact.
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

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PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $5B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

My guest today is Bret Kugelmass, Founder and CEO of Last Energy.

In addition, Bret is…

• The podcast host at Titans of Nuclear
• Managing Director at The Energy Impact Center
• Former CEO of Airphrame, a drone company that he sold to a Fortune 500 buyer
• A graduate of the Stanford School of Engineering

Last Energy is a VC-backed full-service developer of small modular nuclear power projects with the goal of transforming the nuclear power industry by dramatically reducing the time and cost of construction. Their mission is to decarbonize global energy production and increase access to clean, affordable power. They are targeting 2025 for its first units, which require around $200 million to build, and they are investigating 800 other potential sites to deploy the units across Europe.

In this episode, we talked about:

• The three most common misperceptions about nuclear energy
• What he learned from 800 interviews with nuclear energy experts
• Common mistakes made by 50 next-gen nuclear startups
• The outsized role that construction finance plans in the overall cost of nuclear power
• Last Energy’s initial contracts to build small modular nuclear reactors in the UK, Poland, and Romania
• What he means by this quote: “We’re innovative in the way that we are not trying to be overly innovative. We don't reinvent the reactor core, the physics, the chemistry, the materials.”
• How to avoid multiplying risks
• The role of business model vs. tech innovation to get clean energy to market
• The distinction between corporate and project finance for their go-to-market strategy
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy it!

And give Bret and Last Energy a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: https://entrepreneursforimpact.com

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Led by Kate Steel, Nithio is using data science to build a platform for evaluating credit risk and facilitating institutional investment towards off-grid energy solutions in Africa.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"Our mission is to unlock financing at scale for energy access in Africa. There are 600 million people in Africa who lack access to electricity. It is believed that about 300 million of these people would be best served by off-grid energy solutions. Fortunately, there is a strong off-grid solar market that offers a pre-packaged solution for many of these households. In addition, there is a robust pay-as-you-go financing structure layered on top of that. However, because these systems are not paid for up-front, there is some actual and perceived risk that must be managed to ensure the system is paid for in full over time. We are able to model and understand the consumer financing risk at the household level which enables investors to come off the bench and join the game, thereby fueling the deployment of this off grid solar and storage in Africa. Ultimately, we are creating an alternative credit model standard to unlock this broader financing potential."

"We are an intermediary for a blended financing facility. We welcome all types of risk profiles, including equity and debt investors, but would like to see more institutional capital. We operate as a capital conduit enabled by our analytics engine. There are a few market leaders in the off-grid solar space in Africa and a long tail of smaller and often local companies as well. We exist to provide funding for many of these companies as they grow and scale into bigger players."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Casper Rasmussen, co-founder and CEO of Monta.

Monta is “the operating platform powering the EV ecosystem serving drivers, companies, cities, and the electricity grid with one integrated software solution.” 

Based in Denmark, with 8 offices and 170+ employees, they are backed by leading climate investors such as Energize Venture and Pale Blue Dot.

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- How he grew his company from 0 to 150+ employees in just over 2 years

- What led investors to commit more than $60M to his company’s growth

- Why Monta aims to be the “Android of EV charging software”

- How their technology allows EV owners to optimize for the lowest power cost and GHG emissions for their charging

- Various hypotheses that they tried and abandoned for the current business model

- How beer among the early team at a summer house led to the core values they have today

- What radical transparency means for them around salary, equity, and financial disclosure to all employees

- Why half of the team is focused on R&D and innovation

- What led to EVs being 50-90% of new car purchases in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway

- And lots more

---

🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Casper and Monta a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

ZERO is a weekly newsletter about climate finance, startups, and personal development. In this issue, we deliver the spoken podcast version, which covers the following: 26 deal summaries, plus an interview with hydrogen CEO Mo Vargas at BayoTech, and behavioral science for climate persuasion.

For more trends, check out other issues of our free weekly newsletter ZERO: Climate Finance via Entrepreneurs for Impact: https://zeronewsletter.substack.com

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

CapShift empowers philanthropic, donor-advised funds, and financial institutions (along with their clients) to mobilize capital for social and environmental change. They are a turnkey impact investment solution for the $1 trillion charitable investment market. 

Adam Rein is the Cofounder and Chief Investment Officer. Since 2014, he has served as a Managing Director for MissionPoint Partners, an impact investment advisory and asset management firm. Previously, Adam co-founded Altaeros, an MIT startup bringing affordable broadband to rural communities. Adam is also a co-founder of Greentown Labs, the largest climate tech incubator in North America. Previously, Adam worked as a strategy consultant for Bain & Company. Adam has an MBA from MIT Sloan, an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a BA from Yale University.

-------

QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?
• What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned about funding your growth with outside investors?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more. The next live, online course is June 1 to 14.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Al Subbloie, Founder and CEO of Budderfly, a business that provides 100% of the upfront capital needed to give businesses premium, high-efficiency HVAC, refrigeration, LED lights, and more to reduce their energy costs and reduce their carbon footprints.

Backed by over $500M of investor capital, Budderfly uses a combination of patented technologies and proprietary energy software to monitor equipment and collect critical data about business’s energy usage.

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- What led to his success building his prior company to 2,500 people over 16 years

- How he convinced investors to commit half a billion dollars to grow his company

- His unique model of “owning the power bill and the outcome” for his energy efficiency investments

- Why this phrase matters: “A % of a larger number is a large number”

- How to sell on benefits, not features

- Why selling to franchises is a great got-go-market strategy

- The power of capitalism to do good in the world

- Why he hates to micromanage

- What it means to “run towards the (lion) roar”

- And lots more

---

🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Al and Budderfly a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

EnergyX is a direct lithium extraction company with $100M of investment, including about $50M from retail investors. Its 100 team members are advancing its new membrane, solvent, and adsorbents to boost the efficiency of extracting lithium from underground salt water.

Teague is a serial entrepreneur whose first success was launching a record label at age 20 and taking an artist to #1 in the iTunes hip hop charts. (That’s a first for a guest on the EFI podcast!)

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. The severe limitations of conventional lithium mining, such as 35% extraction efficiency and an 18-month wait time
2. Why they are building two lithium extraction plants at the same time 
3. How he acquired the company’s foundational technology for $10,000 
4. Why he believes humans will live to be 140 years old in the near future

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Teague - https://www.linkedin.com/in/teagueegan 

EnergyX - https://energyx.com 

Elon Musk biography - https://shorturl.at/DkNYU

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 85+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $30B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

Avalanche is developing the world's first fusion microreactor, and it has $45M of investor backing from our friends at Congruent Ventures, Grantham, and Climate Capital.

Brian has one of the more entertaining bios in climate tech. Here are snippets and a link: https://avalanchefusion.com/about/team/brian-riordan.

He’s an engineer hardwired to be “all-in”; he no dimmer switch and always chooses the red pill; wine-making, leather & wood workin’, campin’, bee keepin’, farmin’, salt-water lovin’ father to four awesome kids who think he’s an invulnerable jungle gym.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. How they are reducing cost and regulatory hurdles often associated with conventional nuclear fission power
2. The scale-up risks they avoid by building small
3. The difference in transactional vs. authentic relationships
4. Why you must get destroyed in the gym for mental health

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Avalanche - https://avalanchefusion.com 

Brian - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-riordan-a7883b11 

The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything - https://shorturl.at/07HO0 

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable - https://shorturl.at/wsMIm 

Building Brand Authenticity: 7 Habits of Iconic Brands - https://shorturl.at/GuIV1

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 85+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $30B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

Led by CEO Doug Willmore, World Tree acts as a platform to facilitate the planting of Empress Splendor trees to sequester carbon while generating returns for both farmers and investors through both carbon offset and lumber sales.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast. 

Doug described World Tree's business saying, "We grow sustainable forests and farms in North America and Central America. With plans to expand into South America next year. We primarily focus on the growth of the Empress Splendor tree, which is the fastest-growing tree in the world. This species of tree grows to about 80 feet tall and 20 inches in diameter in about 10 years. (Most trees take 20 to 50+ years to reach maturity.) After this period of growth, we can harvest the trees to produce high-value lumber products for end-use as guitars, flooring, and other finished wood products."

Dough highlighted the company's scale saying, "We work with approximately 240 small farmers with about 5,000 acres planted. We plan to plant another 10,000 acres of trees over the next 12 months. Beyond this year, we truly believe the sky's the limit. We are in discussions with larger institutions to plant anywhere from 2,000 to 100,000 acres for single projects."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Plentify is a smart energy company that makes affordable, reliable, and clean electricity a reality for all. Their current focus is on the demand-side management of water heaters to create virtual power plants.

Jon is the former head of clean energy for Google across Africa and a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company and South Pole Carbon Asset Management.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. How smarter water heaters can reduce energy storage costs by 75%
2. Why their capital raise was hardest in the easiest market (a few years back) and easiest in the toughest market (today)
3. What “presencing” is and how to use it to grow your business
4. Why he loves this quote: “Opportunities Multiply as They Are Seized”

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Plentify - https://plentify.io

Jon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-kornik-66b9b410

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 85+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $30B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

Aether is a molecular assembler platform that can extract lithium from previously inaccessible reserves. It uses robots and machine learning to search among trillions of enzymes for the right fit.

Pavle is a first-time founder and almost college dropout (there’s a story to that!) who’s spent almost seven years building Aether and raising $49M along the way.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. How he hopes to make the US the lithium capital of the world
2. Which revenue models he’s pursuing with mining partners
3. How he’ll use nondilutive funding to scale tech deployment
4. Why “I don’t know” is a powerful phrase to build trust

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Aether - https://www.aetherbio.com

Pavle - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlejeremic

Noahpinions (newsletter) - https://substack.com/@noahpinion

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World - https://shorturl.at/inj

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 75+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $20B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

Led by CEO Kiran Bhatraju, Arcadia Power is a platform that provides consumers various clean energy choices to decarbonize their homes. With options ranging from renewable energy credits to community solar and a guaranteed seamless billing experience, Arcadia power makes clean energy accessible and affordable for the residential sector.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"We are a new nationwide digital utility platform. We give clean energy access to everyone across the country no matter where you live -- home or apartment. Our business is against the backdrop of an industry with a monopoly structure that does not provide a lot of options, and we aim to change that. We have been in the market for five years, but we have been adding new products to the platform over time. We came to the market with a basic 100% renewable energy plan in which homeowners would purchase credits against their bill, and we have become one of the largest virtual power plant platforms in the country."

"We are a team of product developers, data scientists, and engineers whose singular focus is to make the customer experience as simple as possible. The reality is that if a single customer would try to go out into the market to purchase clean electrons for themselves whether from a community solar perspective or otherwise, it is nearly impossible."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

My guests in this episode are Sophie Bakalar and Tomás Álvarez Belón from Collaborative Fund.

Collaborative Fund is a 10-year-old VC firm investing at the intersection of for-profit and for-good, with a long-time focus on climate. Today, they’re investing in Series A- and B-stage startups from their $200M Collab SOS Fund. Through their Shared Future initiative, they're also investing $100,000 into 100 startups per year that come through top-notch accelerator programs like YCombinator, Activate, and AirMiners.

In this episode, we talked about the following:

• How they make investment decisions
• Lessons they’ve learned from past investment mistakes
• Tips for startup founders who are new at pitching to investors
• Two of their portfolio companies tackling cell cultured animal fat and smarter EV charging through software that recognizes the bottlenecks of the power grid
• The importance of distinguishing roles and responsibilities among founders
• Personal goals of ever greater simplicity in life
• Recommended sci-fi books to read
• The power of slow mornings
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy!

And give Sophie, Tomás, Collaborative Fund, and Shared Future a shout-out on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Baruch Future Ventures is a VC investor that works with entrepreneurs to shorten the time and reduce the cost to commercialization of resource technology innovations. They invest in the early stages of companies in these impact areas: energy systems, food security, air quality, healthcare, and water quality.

Jason Holt is a partner at Baruch Future Ventures. He is also a former entrepreneur with 27 years of experience; a PhD in chemical engineering from Caltech; and Board member or advisor to dozens of startups, especially in hardtech.

-------

QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What is your investment focus — e.g., sector, stage, geography, check size? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Laura Zapata, Cofounder and CEO of Clearloop.

Clearloop creates carbon solutions for organizations of all sizes, from global corporations to small businesses and educational institutions, to decarbonize the economy, expand access to clean energy, and accelerate the development of new solar projects in American communities where the greatest economic and environmental benefits can be achieved.

Clearloops works in partnership with utility-scale solar developer Silicon Ranch, which acquired Clearloop in 2021.

In addition, Laura is the former Head of Global Communications for Uber Eats, Press Secretary for Hillary Clinton’s Presidential race in Ohio, and communications lead for other Congressional offices.

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

How to get Taylor Swift to partner with Clearloop (half serious). What she learned by working at Uber in a “move fast and break things” mentality. Having the former Governor of Tennessee as a cofounder (a first for our podcast). How to move from being an intrapreneur with Uber Eats to an entrepreneur. The importance of being optimistic.

What we all need to do to improve climate tech’s communication strategy to broaden the tent (btw, pop quiz: how many degrees Fahrenheit is 1.5 degrees Celsius?). Why working with renewables in the South can have more impact given the carbon intensity of the power grid. How Clearloop’s model of carbon offsets for corporates changes how renewable energy power plants are financed. The need to build a life, not just a career (and the joy of farmer’s markets).

And lots more!

---

👍 Quick favor: Please leave a review or 5-star rating on your podcast player. This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here. 🙏

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate founders, CEOs, and investors scale faster via the #1 peer group community in North America. Our invite-only cohorts grow through monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching calls. Today’s highly vetted members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 80,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

And here's our weekly newsletter — A 2-minute summary of climate tech startups, impact investing, and leading with purpose (and a sense of humor). ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Liminal uses ultrasound and machine learning to create a new way to inspect battery manufacturing, elevate cell quality, and improve cost and safety. They’ve raised over $35M from investors such as our friends at ArcTern Ventures, EIF, and Northvolt, as well as the federal government, including ARPA-E and NSF.

Andrew brings a PhD and post-doc work at Princeton University to the creation of this venture. He’s also an Active Fellow and Board member, as well as a skilled photographer.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. How they sell to customers (it’s not what you think)
2. How they generate revenue from three sources of value
3. How a random Youtube video about bouncing batteries led to the creation of this technology
4. How he reads the late-night scribbles on the notepad by his bed each morning

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Liminal - https://www.liminalinsights.com

Andrew - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-hsieh

Acquired (podcast) - https://www.acquired.fm

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 80+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $20B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

Led by Josh Dorfman, Plantd turns atmospheric carbon into low-prices, high-performance building materials using industrial hemp, an ultra-strong, fast-growing plant that captures over 3x more carbon than trees.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"Most home builders are using a product called oriented strand board (OSB). We decided to build these, too, but to make them out of hemp. We think there are opportunities to make a better product, but it still looks and performs like the OSB builders use today. We're not going to ask builders to adopt an alternative building technique. We just want to slide into construction as it works today and to make it easy for people."

"I met Huade Tan, who is our co-founder and CTO, back in February. He spent six years at SpaceX before moving to the Research Triangle Park to start a new company. In parallel, I had been feeling frustrated with engineered wood, seeing the price go up while the quality declined, and I felt there had to be a better alternative. When I met Huade, we were supposed to talk about manufacturing. But I put this idea out there, and he thought it was interesting. His team at SpaceX had also been thinking about alternative biomass and within 20 minutes, we decided to go for it."

-------

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

Led by Managing Director Dave Kirkpatrick, SJF Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Durham, San Francisco, New York, and Seattle that has been at the forefront of impact investing since 1999. They have invested in 70+ high impact ventures that are creating a healthier, smarter and cleaner future.

Dave Kirkpatrick helped lead SJF’s capitalization of four funds totaling $260 million starting in 1999. His portfolio engagements include Terabase Energy, ROOM, Waycare, Voltaiq, Living Earth, ENTOUCH Controls, and Community Energy, as well as exited companies TransLoc, NEXTracker, groSolar, CleanScapes, B.B Hobbs, and Foxfire. Dave’s industry focus areas include solar energy, energy efficiency, recycling & reuse, and mobility. Dave also serves as the founding co-chair of the Impact Capital Managers, a network of private capital fund managers in the U.S. and Canada investing for financial returns and impact.

Prior to SJF, Dave founded and managed two other successful enterprises – KirkWorks, a cleantech investment research firm; and SunShares, a solar energy and recycling company. Dave was named the 2005 CDVC Practitioner of the Year by the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance and Recycler of the Year in 1996 by the National Recycling Coalition.

Dave earned a BA in Physics and History from Duke University in 1982 and an MBA from UNC Kenan Flagler Business School (KFBS) in 1991. He was named KFBS Executive MBA Alumnus of the Year in 2010.  He enjoys gardening, kayaking, and trying to learn Spanish.

-------

QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What is your investment focus — e.g., sector, stage, geography, check size? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• Give us some examples of recent investments that you’re excited about.
• Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like?

Personal

• Tell us about 1-2 tips you’d give your “younger” self in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact.
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

PODCAST GUEST BIOS:

Shopify is a leading global e-commerce platform where "millions of the world's most successful brands sell, ship, and process payments anywhere." Nearly 600M shoppers made a purchase from a Shopify merchant in 2021, and around $496B has been sold on Shopify by merchants to date.

Stacy Kauk is the Head of Sustainability and formerly Head of Ozone Protection and Head of Chemicals Management at Environment and Climate Change Canada. 

She plays leadership roles in the $32M they've invested to support carbon-negative companies through their Sustainability Fund, and the new $925M commitment from Shopify, Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, and McKinsey Sustainability to do the same over ten years in the Frontier Fund.

-------

QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?
• What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned about funding your growth with outside investors?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more. The next live, online course is June 1 to 14. It's capped at only 25 students.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Tim Boeltken, Founder and Managing Director of INERATEC.

INERATEC is an e-Fuel company based in Germany that recently raised $129M to transform 1 GW of renewable energy into 125 million gallons of sustainable e-Fuel by 2030.

Tim brings a PhD in chemical engineering and nine years of dedication to building INERATEC.

Hope you enjoy it!

---

🌐 LINKS:

INERATEC:

https://www.ineratec.de/en

Tim:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-boeltken/?locale=en_US

---

🎙️ PODCAST TOPICS:

How their total addressable market is $14T (with a “T”) with use cases in aviation, shipping, and heavy-duty transport. Their BOO model to build, own, and operate e-Fuel plants. The science of making e-Fuels. Why he’s not in the 5 AM club. Their global expansion plans. How his founding team has stayed together for so many years. What makes German engineers cry.

And lots more!

Please give Tim and INERATEC a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

🙏 QUICK FAVOR:

Please leave a review or rating on your podcast player.

It means a lot, and I read every one.

This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here.

---

🌎 ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS FOR IMPACT:

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

Led by Co-founder and COO Max Nova, NCX is a VC-backed net-zero pioneer using AI, remote-sensing, and robust forestry science to map all forest assets in the US, create the largest forest carbon project in the US, and build a marketplace of high-quality carbon offsets.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"One of the things you'll hear a lot of people say is that this is a critical decade for the climate or climate action, and it's true. There are these commitments that go out to 2040 or 2050, but we have to start making progress now because the scale of the problem is enormous. We see a lot of our role at NCX is helping bring scale to bear on this challenge by being able to engage every landowner in the country, and one day the world. It's every acre every year. That's the kind of scale that we need to do and even forests won't be a silver bullet for this thing either."

"What's fascinating is that most of these Chief Sustainability Officer positions -- those making or catalyzing buy decisions for our carbon offsets -- did not exist a year ago, two years ago. Everybody is new. Everybody is trying to figure this out. Because it's a new role, there's tremendous diversity in how this is set up in corporations across a bunch of different sectors. Sometimes the Chief Sustainability Officer reports to marketing, sometimes they're part of the supply chain logistics group, sometimes they report directly to the CEO. It's fascinating to see in different companies how this position fits into the org chart because it reflects something about the organization's priorities and why they're making these commitments because there's not one reason. There's a lot of different reasons, both internal and external, that companies choose to make these commitments."

-------

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP is an international law firm with a particular focus on the technology & media, energy, financial, and real estate & construction sectors. They have been recognized as one of the most innovative law firms by Financial Times and one of the top firms for client service by BTI Consulting.

Mona Dajani, an industry thought leader and a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, is the global co-leader of the firm’s Energy and Infrastructure Projects Team at and also leads the Renewable Energy practice, which covers clean energy, clean energy technology, hydrogen, and sustainable finance. She is qualified as a lawyer in the U.S., as a registered foreign lawyer in England, and a licensed professional engineer.

Their Hydrogen Energy Map Tracker is here: https://www.thehydrogenmap.com

-------

QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?
• What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned about funding your growth with outside investors?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more. 
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Montauk Climate is a venture studio that launches and grows startups in the mobility, adaptation, energy, decarbonization, and sustainability sectors.

Evan is a serial founder, power trader, board member, and investor with 20 years in the energy sector, including roles as Head of Venture Investing at Riverstone, a $40B energy investment and infrastructure firm.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. How a venture studio works
2. How he incentivizes experienced corporate executives to help build and lead the startups they launch
3. Why compute is the current of the future, and how AI could be using 10% of global power in the years to come
4. Why adaptive insurance using IFTT parametric functions is needed in a future disrupted by climate change

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Montauk Climate - https://montaukclimate.com

Evan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanc1

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 80+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $20B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

⭐ My guest today is Haroon Inam, CEO and co-founder at DG Matrix.

DG Matrix is a power electronics startup building L3 DC fast EV chargers, that are 10-20x smaller than competitors, as well as all-in-one single-unit microgrid solutions. They have over 100 engineers innovating on these two products.

Haroon has three decades of experience in executive, product, and operations roles in energy technology companies, including the commercialization of billions of dollars worth of power electronics products and over 50 patents awarded.

Links:

Haroon - https://www.linkedin.com/in/harooninam

DG Matrix - https://www.dgmatrix.com

---

🎙️ PODCAST TOPICS:

Their $1B pipeline of big companies that are excited to use their fast chargers. The benefits of fast chargers that are 70% smaller than competitors’. The role of silicon carbide in their innovation. Lessons learned from 30+ years in power electronics. The benefits of improving EQ (emotional intelligence) earlier in one’s career. Why he meditates and aims for a low ego.

And lots more!

---

🙏 QUICK FAVOR:

Please leave a review or rating on your podcast player.

This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here.

---

🌎 ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS FOR IMPACT:

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Live online course about startup capital raising (coaching, peer feedback): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/V6xcB⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

DIY course about startup capital raising (170 slides, 70-item library, 250-investor list): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/QCcl5⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

PODCAST GUEST BIOS:

Sustain.Life is a software solution that futureproofs mid-cap businesses tackling climate change. This includes the following benefits: (1) measure, track, and manage carbon emissions, (2) identify areas to make operational changes that reduce emissions, and offset the rest, and (3) leveraging tools and reports to engage suppliers, employees, customers, and other key stakeholders.

Mike Hanrahan is the Co-founder, Interim CEO, and Board Member. He is also the CEO of 4Sided, a firm that builds SaaS companies; former Co-founder of Jet.com; and former CEO of Intelligent Retail Lab at Walmart.

Alyssa (Zucker) Rade is the Chief Sustainability Officer. She was formerly Director of Sustainability for Vornado Realty Trust and Environmental Designer at Atelier Ten.

-------

QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?
• What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned about funding your growth with outside investors?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO mastermind peer groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more. The next live, online course is June 1 to 14. It's capped at only 25 students.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Amanda Hall, Founder and CEO of Summit Nanotech, which supports the electric vehicle revolution by capturing lithium ion in brine using nanotechnology. 

In their unique process, they shorten the average industry rate of lithium production from 18 months to 1 day. They also dramatically reduce the amount of water, pressure, heat, and chemicals needed to responsibly mine this valuable input for battery storage.

To date, they’ve raised $7M in grants and $65M from investors, such as Capricorn, Evok Innovations, Volta, and Grantham.

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

• How her training as a geophysicist in the oil and gas industry trained her for this job

• Why she felt compelled to travel to Tibet and why that led her to come back, quit her job, sell her home, sell her oil and gas stocks, and rethink her contributions to the world

• What the human kidney and biomimicry taught her about early designs for Summit’s technology

• Her advice on trusting her gut to make tough decisions earlier rather than later

• The importance of trusting and verifying the data you rely on for growing your company

• Why they are vertically integrating to own land and own lithium outputs

• What they look for when hiring new team members, such as humility, relentlessness, and a desire to do the impossible

• Her favorite quotes

• Book recommendations for CEOs to better manage their team’s growth

• And lots more

---

👍 Quick favor: Please leave a review or 5-star rating on your podcast player. This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here. 🙏

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate founders, CEOs, and investors scale faster via the #1 peer group community in North America. Our invite-only cohorts grow through monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching calls. Today’s highly vetted members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

And here's our weekly newsletter — A 2-minute summary of climate tech startups, impact investing, and leading with purpose (and a sense of humor). ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Cofounded by Helen Bertelli, Women in Climate Tech provides free monthly programming to its hundreds of members and newsletter subscribers to facilitate the career growth of women fighting the climate crisis. The organization recognizes that the climate and gender equality issues are closely intertwined and is striving to solve both. She is also the Founder of Benecomms, a climate- and impact-focused marketing and PR firm.

"We have a dual mandate at Women in Climate Tech," she said. "The first part of the mandate is to do whatever we can to serve our members — getting them jobs, facilitating financing rounds, and more. The second part of that mandate is to seek the largest scale of impact possible at which to do this work. Working in a system that is stacked against you can be soul-destroying work, and we want to change that underlying system."

She said, "We formalized this group and then really launched more broadly in January of 2021. We have seen explosive growth with new subscribers and members joining every day. We provide monthly programming in the form of networking events, speakers, skill development opportunities. We are still trying various formats to learn what best serves our members, but at this point all of our programming is free, and we believe we’ve provided tremendous value to our early cohorts."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. 

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Bill Nussey is the founder of the Freeing Energy Project, whose mission is to accelerate the shift to cleaner, cheaper energy.

His new book is: Freeing Energy: How innovators are using local-scale solar and batteries to disrupt the global energy industry from the outside in.https://www.freeingenergy.com

Prior to Freeing Energy, Bill spent most of his career as a tech CEO. His first company, which he co-founded in high school, provided graphics software for early, text-based personal computers. His second company, Da Vinci Systems, was started out of his college dorm room and grew to serve millions of users across 45 countries. Later, he spent several years as a venture capitalist with Greylock. In 1998, he left the firm to run a portfolio company, iXL, which went public and grew to almost $500 million in revenue. After iXL, he joined Silverpop as CEO. Silverpop grew to nearly $100 million and became a global leader in cloud-based marketing. In 2014, IBM acquired the company and made it the foundation of the IBM Marketing Cloud. Shortly after the acquisition, Bill was promoted to VP Corporate Strategy out of IBM’s world headquarters in New York. Bill’s companies have created thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in value.

Bill’s journey into clean energy began with a TED Talk, which grew into 100+ articles and, most recently, a top ten energy podcast called The Freeing Energy Podcast. All of this supported and ultimately led to his upcoming book called Freeing Energy. Supported by 320 interviews across the world, the book’s mission is to help readers understand a powerful new approach to accelerating the shift to clean energy. The core ideas focus on decentralized (or local) energy, novel business models, and new approaches to ownership and finance.

-------

PODCAST HOST:

The parent company of the Climate Torch podcast is Entrepreneurs for Impact.

We are the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

⭐ My guest today is Aaron Luque, Cofounder and CEO at EnviroSpark.

EnviroSpark is a leading installer of EV charging stations and delivers a fully customizable solution at little to no cost for property owners. With a team of over 130 people and thousands of stations installed, they are on a mission to raise awareness of the benefits of electric vehicles 

Aaron is a serial environmental entrepreneur, based in Atlanta, Georgia, who conceived of the idea for EnviroSpark during a round-the-world travel adventure to 20 countries with his wife and business partner.

---

🌐 LINKS:

Aaron - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronluque

EnviroSpark - https://envirosparkenergy.com

---

🎙️ PODCAST TOPICS:

The magic of financing EV charging installations to make it easier for real estate owners to say yes. How he scaled the company from a $5,000 investment to a multi-million dollar company before taking outside investment. The need to have a bias for action. Concentration risk of working too much with big customers. The moral responsibility and enormous economic opportunity of transportation electrification.

And lots more!

---

🙏 QUICK FAVOR:

Please leave a review or rating on your podcast player.

This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here.

---

🌎 ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS FOR IMPACT:

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Live online course about startup capital raising (coaching, peer feedback): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/V6xcB⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

DIY course about startup capital raising (170 slides, 70-item library, 250-investor list): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/QCcl5⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

⭐ My guest today is ⁠Kameale Terry, Cofounder and CEO of ChargerHelp!.

ChargerHelp! is the only national EV charger-dedicated operations and maintenance service provider, with over 1,000 EV technicians trained so far. Their key offering is Reliability as a Service (RaaS) – “a labor subscription service that provides peace of mind to charging station owners and operators who require fast and reliable O&M services at consistent, hassle-free prices, with 97% EV charger up time.”

Kameale Terry is a former banker, policy fellow, and EV charging software executive. She’s also the daughter of Belizean immigrants born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. She believes that an “equitable green economy can be achieved through realignment of existing workforces in conjunction with clean technology.”

---

🌐 LINKS:

Kameale - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamealecterry

ChargerHelp! - https://www.chargerhelp.com

---

🎙️ PODCAST TOPICS:

Their new partnership with SAE International to create a standardized EV charging technician program. The benefits of betting on American consumerism to choose new technology products that delight them (like EVs). How they will leverage the largest data set nationally for EV charging operations. Why she’s a member of the 5 AM club and how it affects her mornings. How we miss out on solutions when we don’t include all people. Insights from a favorite book, Paradise Built in Hell.

And lots more!

---

🙏 QUICK FAVOR:

Please leave a review or rating on your podcast player.

This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here.

---

🌎 ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS FOR IMPACT:

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Live online course about startup capital raising (coaching, peer feedback): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/V6xcB⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

DIY course about startup capital raising (170 slides, 70-item library, 250-investor list): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/QCcl5⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

⭐ My guest today is Matt Lipscomb, Founder and CEO of DMC Biotechnologies.

DMC is a Boulder-based biotech company that sustainably produces bio-based chemicals using fermentation, with over $50M in VC funding and a team of over 40 people.

In addition, Matt is a:

• Certified Ski Mountaineering Guide

• Rock climbing guide and instructor

• Director for the American Institute of Avalanche Research and Education

• PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

• The meaning of metabolic engineering

• How rock climbing has taught him to better manage risks as a CEO

• His experience seeing glacier retreat has inspired his work

• How DMC engineers microbes to standardize fermentation for cost-effective scale-up

• The definition of “friend-shoring” and how DMC improves companies’ supply chains

• Why his early work in chemical plants led him to where he is today

• What he means to cross-train physically and intellectually

• The pains of fast growth and techniques he uses to build culture and cohesion while growing 3x this year

• Why investors care that you’re founding a company with a former cofounder

• The difference between lifespan and healthspan

• And lots more

---

👍 Quick favor: Please leave a review or 5-star rating on your podcast player. This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here. 🙏

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate founders, CEOs, and investors scale faster via the #1 peer group community in North America. Our invite-only cohorts grow through monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching calls. Today’s highly vetted members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 80,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

And here's our weekly newsletter — A 2-minute summary of climate tech startups, impact investing, and leading with purpose (and a sense of humor). ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⭐ My guest today is Jeff Erhardt, CEO of Mattiq.

Mattiq is a materials discovery startup delivering innovative electrochemical solutions to decarbonize the fundamental building blocks that power the world. By 2024, they plan to have screened one trillion materials for deployment in real-world systems, such as cleaner fuels and chemicals.

In addition, Jeff is the former…

- Executive Vice President of Intelligent Systems & Industrial AI at GE

- CEO of Wise.io

- COO of Revolution Analytics

- Creator of two sabbaticals, the last one lasting two years

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- How they are commercializing the work of a leading scientist at Northwestern University, Chad Mirkin

- Their focus on minimizing and mimicking larger systems in order to speed up novel chemistry discoveries with real-world applications

- Why culture eats strategy, and how startups need to hire fast and fire fast

- What it means to include AI and machine learning in their processes

- Similarities between their work and genomics and synthetic biology

- Their business model of going to market with big chemical and energy partners via joint development agreements that allow for some cash up front, plus revenue or profit sharing down the road

- Recommended books from his two-year sabbatical

- Why you can’t be a good executive unless you understand history

- And lots more

🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Jeff and Mattiq a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: https://entrepreneursforimpact.com

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Matt Maroon, CEO of C-Motive Technologies.

He is a six-time veteran of cleantech startups – developing and selling new technologies, from advanced batteries to energy-optimizing artificial intelligence software - with a goal of improving society’s efficient use of resources and reducing environmental impact. 

C-Motive is the first and only company commercializing sustainable, high-efficiency motor technology using electrostatic principles to decarbonize stationary industrial and e-mobility applications.

Their investors include Prime Impact Fund, Collaborative Fund, and Starlight Ventures.

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- How motors consume 50% of all electricity in the world, despite how oblivious we all are to that fact

- The fact that 2% of a motor’s life cycle costs are attributed to its upfront cost – i.e., CapEx vs. its OpEx

- The whopping size of the motor market at $100B in sales per year

- Their efficiency at 90% compared to most motors which average 50-70%

- The utility in industrial applications at less than 500 RPM, especially in geographies with high power prices

- How dudes with long hair in climate tech need to stick together

- And lots more

---

🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Matt and C-Motive a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

My guest for his episode is Damian Beauchamp, the President and Chief Development Officer of 8 Rivers.

In addition, he is also:

• An advisor to the Carbon XPrize
• A Board member at NET Power

8 Rivers is a platform company developing the sustainable infrastructure of tomorrow by inventing and commercializing large-scale innovations in the race to Net Zero. Founded by a former Wall Street finance executive and a literal rocket scientist, their investors include industry heavyweights Exelon, SK Group, McDermott, and Occidental Low Carbon Ventures.

In this episode, we talked about the following:

• How they’re creating billions of dollars of market-proven value
• How Blue Ocean strategies have served them well
• The validation they’ve received on a net-zero, cost-neutral natural gas power plant in Texas
• Their go-to-market plan of innovation and IP development, followed by licensing the tech to others for maximum scale and climate benefits
• The path to securing big-name corporate partners
• The need to be optimistic and solutions-oriented when it comes to tackling climate change
• Quotes from Calvin Coolidge on the power of persistence
• Why he has a picture of the Grand Canyon as his LinkedIn banner picture
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy!

And give Damian and 8 Rivers a shout-out on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

-------

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Aaron Ratner, President of Cross River Infrastructure Partners, a sustainable infrastructure developer, delivering next-generation climate positive projects, including carbon, hydrogen, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"Cross River Infrastructure Partners is a platform of development companies deploying climate technology and capital into sustainable infrastructure projects. We do two things. We co-develop projects with development teams that have very focused expertise in a particular vertical, and we also partner with technology providers to become a developer of their technology as a service into the market. We currently work across carbon, hydrogen, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy, which are increasingly intertwined. The model is to have a platform to catalyze early commercialization of projects and technologies. Our goal is to bring together corporate partners, investment capital and talented technology developers to get early players accelerated up the technology adoption curve."

"Our vision is to have built a platform that enables nascent but proven climate technologies to accelerate their deployment and get more projects in the ground by bringing together corporate customers and institutional finance. An additional aspect of the platform would include systematized vetting of technologies, which is a very difficult task. There is really a small window of opportunity, in which a technology is neither too early, risking relationships and capital, nor too late, wasting time and market opportunity. We are going to continue to refine our criteria for this type of project and technology evaluation."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ In today’s super short episode, I share parts of a white paper I recently wrote called “10 Lessons I’ve Learned from Coaching 100+ Climate CEOs.” 

The rest of the white paper is available for free on my website at www.entrepreneursforimpact.com. 

If you find something useful in it or have other lessons you think I should add to it, drop me a note at team@entrepreneursforimpact.com. 🙏

Led by CEO and Co-founder Kentaro Kawamori, Persefoni is a SaaS platform that enables companies and financial institutions to measure, disclose, and reduce their carbon footprint, thereby meeting stakeholder and regulatory climate disclosure needs with the highest degrees of trust, transparency, and ease. 

They recently announced a $101M in Series B and the launch of free carbon accounting product. Prelude Ventures and TPG’s The Rise Fund led the round — the largest-ever investment round in any Climate Tech SaaS company.

Prior to founding Persefoni, Kentaro was an early-stage venture investor and Chief Digital Officer at a Fortune 500 energy firm. In 2020, Kentaro was recognized by Forbes on its 30 Under 30 and in 2021 by SXSW in its startup pitch event.  

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

This is a newsletter-turned-podcast episode from Entrepreneurs for Impact.

That, of course, means that I took too much vacation and didn't line up a guest for this week. 😂

But oh, the goodness herein!

• 🤑 Climate tech VC — 4 market updates
• 🏎️ Funding data for 200+ mobility startups
• 🏥 143 million climate refugees
• 🌾 Movie | Vegans are not weenies
• 🌎 Save $250 | Learn climate tech startup funding with me
• ⛈️ Under every beautiful company logo is a hot mess

Let me know if you like it.

• https://twitter.com/DrChrisWedding
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherwedding

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Led by CEO Mike Jha, AgShift reduces agriculture and food waste through better quality control by using AI and the Internet of Things.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"Our mission is to reduce food waste. We apply the latest innovations in technology such as the Internet of Things, computer vision and artificial intelligence as a means of expression intended to achieve this mission. We automate the quality assessment and grading process for the food industry. Quality is a fundamental concept for the food industry, and we are designing the protocols to make this process better, faster, more consistent and digitized. Ultimately, it is much easier to reduce food waste than it is to increase food production."

"We primarily offer our solutions as a software as a service model (SaaS) with an annual subscription. Because our technology is based on artificial intelligence algorithms that run in the background and perform much of the quality assessment analysis, we think this model makes the most sense. We are flexible with customers who may prefer to pay more upfront and less over time, and we can also lease our hardware rather than sell it directly to customers."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Led by Briana Warner, Atlantic Sea Farms is dedicated to making a powerful and positive impact on the health of our customers and oceans by creating craveable and innovative products made from sustainably farmed sea greens, all while expanding opportunities for Maine's fishing communities.

More about Atlantic Sea Farms:

"Good food should do good. At Atlantic Sea Farms, our kelp is never dyed and grown in the clean, cold waters of Maine. Use our kelp in place of any other green vegetable for a delicious umami kick and a boost of B12, calcium, and iodine. Think grain bowls, tacos, sauces and soups. And Kelp forests may remove 20 times more carbon from the atmosphere than land-based forests and help to mitigate the effects of ocean acidification." https://atlanticseafarms.com

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

In this newsletter-turned-podcast episode from Entrepreneurs for Impact, I cover the following:

• 🚫 Texas “bans” 348 ESG funds
• 🗺️ 350+ climate startups on a map
• ☠️ We’re all dying right now
• 💰 Billionaire VC investor — “We made a mistake.”
• 🏳️ Investing in climate adaptation is not surrendering to sorrow and darkness
• 📽️ Movie | The Story of Stuff
• 🤮 Your network is your net worth (Vomit)
• 🗓️ TGIF? Nope. Thank God it’s Monday
• 🧡 Taxes — Why you should give them a big warm hug.

Enjoy. Let me know if you like it.

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherwedding

-------

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Shawn Lesser, Cofounder of The Real (current role) and Cofounder of Big Path Capital (prior role).

The Real is helping entrepreneurs deal with burnout and depression by connecting with others going through those same mental health challenges.

Big Path Capital is, according to Barron’s, “The Impact Investment Bank.” Their network of 2,500+ limited partners (investors) and 200+ impact-focused private equity firms led to billions of dollars flowing into companies that prioritize both profit and positive environmental or social impacts.

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

• What triggered his depression

• The impacts of having too much of his identity tied up in his business

• Why a fish bowl being shaken up relates to where he was

• What he learned after spending three stints in centers to boost his mental health

• The speaking tour that he and his cofounder, Brent Herd, are on

• Why The Real is about finding purpose out of pain

• What an Uber driver and a post-exit entrepreneur with $800M in cash have in common

• And lots more

---

👍 Quick favor: Please leave a review or 5-star rating on your podcast player. This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here. 🙏

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate founders, CEOs, and investors scale faster via the #1 peer group community in North America. Our invite-only cohorts grow through monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching calls. Today’s highly vetted members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

And here's our weekly newsletter — A 2-minute summary of climate tech startups, impact investing, and leading with purpose (and a sense of humor). ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Avnos provides a Hybrid Direct Air Capture (HDAC) solution that inverts the water paradigm in DAC, producing water (5 tons per ton of carbon captured), eliminating heat consumption, and reducing costs by 50% compared to other forms of DAC.

Will is a serial founder, investor, and board member in climate tech.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. How they accessed $100M in capital to grow this company
2. How their technology does what seems impossible in the DAC sector
3. How they accessed strategic investors and deployment partners on three continents
4. Why walking his dog and disengaging the brain produces some of his best business ideas

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Avnos - https://www.avnos.com

Will - https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-kain

Recent $36M Series A capital raise - https://shorturl.at/d17tT 

Acquired (podcast) - https://www.acquired.fm 

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (book) - https://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393324818  

Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy - https://shorturl.at/muTC7

Third Derivative (climate tech accelerator) - https://www.third-derivative.org

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 80+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $20B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

ZERO is a weekly newsletter about climate finance, startups, and personal development. In this issue, we deliver the spoken podcast version, which covers the following: Climate finance speakers, 99% of the investment industry’s $69T controlled by one demographic, 3x3x3 learning framework from McKinsey, climate risk disclosure vs. investors' blood pressure.

For more trends, check out other issues of our free weekly newsletter ZERO: Climate Finance via Entrepreneurs for Impact: https://zeronewsletter.substack.com

WATTMORE is an energy storage software company providing battery sizing, economic outcome forecasts, battery charging and discharging, and more.

JW is a serial founder and clean power executive (Because Solar, Main Street Power, Clean Energy Collective, SunShare), Vice Chair (Western Caucus) of the Democratic National Committee, Board member of Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association, and Board member of SELF (Solar Electric Light Fund).

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. What it means to be a “deal whisperer”
2. How his experience developing hundreds of solar projects helps his software company grow
3. His five-year vision and recurring revenue contracts of 10 years or more
4. What he learned from his mother, who was ordained in the Soto Zen Buddhism tradition

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

WATTMORE - https://www.wattmore.com 

JW - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jopostal

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 85+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $30B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

⭐ My guest today is Dr. Murray Collins, Cofounder and CEO of Space Intelligence, a world-leading nature data provider for Nature Based Solutions, such as the protection of tropical forests to preserve biodiversity and help corporations like Apple reach their net zero goals. .

In addition, Murray is the

• Science Director and Co-Founder of Picture Zero, a production company dedicated to quality content about climate change

• Former Chancellor's Fellow for Space and Satellites at The University of Edinburgh

• Former Environmental Scientist in Residence at The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland

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🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- His four years of rainforest work in Indonesia and Africa

- Almost getting into a knife fight with a tiger

- The 30 years of experience in tropical ecology and data analytics among him and his cofounder

- The 100+ scientific papers produced by his team

- How they work with conservation project developers around the world

- The market validation they received from lots of consulting projects early on

- Their use of optical data, LIDAR, on-the-ground metrics, and other satellite input to measure above-ground biomass for key habitats

- How they help Apple invest in their Restore Fund

- What pro-poor means and why it’s relevant to 1 billion people around the world

- Motivation vs. discipline

- Passion vs. obsession

- Why he’s reading books about the Middle East

- And lots more

---

🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Murray and Space Intelligence a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ In this Ask Me Anything (AMA) podcast, I cover these five questions from listeners to the Entrepreneurs for Impact podcast and readers of the ⁠Entrepreneurs for Impact newsletter⁠ on Substack.

1. “You always ask your guests what books they’re reading, but how about you? What books do you like to recommend?” – Thanks, Casey
2. “What are some of the best non-financial resources that are available to entrepreneurs (aside from badass climate CEO peer groups at Entrepreneurs for Impact)?” – Thanks, Nick
3. “If I want to have a bigger impact on climate change, should I work for a big firm or smaller one?” – Thanks, Tyler
4. “I want to help female founders in climate tech succeed. I would love to start off by working pro bono and helping them raise funds and learn as I go. But where do I start?” – Thanks, Helena
5. “If I’m raising VC capital for my startup, what do I need to create for investors, besides a pitch deck?” – Thanks, Brook

If you have other questions you’d like me to cover on the next AMA podcast, just DM me on LinkedIn or reply to my ⁠Entrepreneurs for Impact newsletter⁠ on Substack.

---

👍 Quick favor: Please leave a review or 5-star rating on your podcast player. This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here. 🙏

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate founders, CEOs, and investors scale faster via the #1 peer group community in North America. Our invite-only cohorts grow through monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching calls. Today’s highly vetted members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

And here's our weekly newsletter — A 2-minute summary of climate tech startups, impact investing, and leading with purpose (and a sense of humor). ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⭐ My guest today is Sarah Richardson, co-founder and CEO of MicroByre.

MicroByre makes pets out of bacteria. They domesticate naturally occurring bacteria and introduce them to industry. They enable customers to efficiently produce bio-derived chemistries at or below current petrochemical economics. Newly cooperative bacteria can replace ancient biomass (petrochemicals) with renewable biomass (lawn clippings) efficiently and economically.

They’re backed by leading climate tech investors such as Prime Impact Fund, MCJ Collective, and Earthshot Ventures.

Sarah has a PhD in Human Genetics and Molecular Biology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and was a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow of Genomics at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory she worked on massive-scale synthetic biology projects and the integration of computational genomics with experimental genomics.

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- What it means to be a germ wrangler

- How they are bringing about biomanufacturing at scale

- The 95% of bacteria we don’t yet understand and the potential that represents to tackle humanity’s greatest problems

- Why it’s important to learn how to learn

- The role of luck vs. skill in growing a company

- How she overcame the challenges of raising VC capital

- Why they’ve assembled a team of microbiologists, chemists, molecular biologists, data scientists, and computer scientists to automate the collection and curation of bacterial data.

- And lots more

---

🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Sarah and MicroByre a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: https://entrepreneursforimpact.com

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Led by Heather Hochrein, EVMatch provides a software platform that enables both a peer-to-peer EV charging system (analogous to Airbnb for electric vehicle chargers) and facilitates apartment building charging sessions through automatic scheduling and access control.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast. 

Heather described EVMatch's business saying, "We are a software platform that provides access to privately owned EV charging stations with the ultimate goal of increasing the feasibility of EV ownership. Our platform was initially created to provide a peer-to-peer network of homeowners who have individual level 2 charging stations and can provide access to this infrastructure to their neighbors and community members in exchange for additional cash. In this sense, we say that we are the “Airbnb of electric vehicle charging stations.” Moreover, we have begun to provide reservation-based software for apartment complexes and church facilities to help these facilities manage EV charging sessions.

We have three revenue streams. Our primary revenue stream is a service fee that we charge to customers when using the peer-to-peer network, in much the same way that Airbnb customers pay a transaction fee when they book a reservation. Our secondary revenue stream is an annual subscription fee (i.e., a SaaS offering) that we charge to our commercial customers for the reservation management service. Finally, we earn a commission on the resale of level 2 charging hardware."

Heather highlighted the company's work to drive electric vehicle adoption by addressing range anxiety saying, "It is absolutely a primary motivation. Range anxiety is a combination of relatively short-range batteries in the existing fleet of electric vehicles and insufficient public charging infrastructure. While we believe the former will be addressed by gradually improving battery chemistry coming out of labs working in conjunction with automakers, we are actively working on the latter. While we do not directly build charging stations, we work to maximize their usage rate, making this infrastructure more accessible to all. It is also clear that the EV charging infrastructure must continue to be built out, and we expect that as this continues our role will only continue to expand in terms of the smart software management of these facilities."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

ZERO is a weekly newsletter about climate finance, startups, and personal development. In this issue, we deliver the spoken podcast version, which covers the following: SPAC overage, over 1,000 indoor agtech startups (map), cobalt and child labor (infographic), and which Native American land are you sitting on?

For more trends, check out other issues of our free weekly newsletter ZERO: Climate Finance via Entrepreneurs for Impact: https://zeronewsletter.substack.com

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Led by CEO and Co-founder Dr. Marcus Lehmann, CalWave is unlocking the vast and steady carbon-free power from ocean waves worldwide. They have built a proprietary wave energy converter technology that achieves high performance while surviving storms and extreme conditions.

Marcus is a Forbes 30 Under 30 and brings 15+ years of experience as an industrial engineer and startup builder from Cyclotron Road, E.ON, Siemens, and BMW.

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way?
• Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

⭐ My guest today is Dawn Lippert, the CEO of Elemental Excelerator, Partner at Earthshot Ventures, and Senior Climate Advisor at Emerson Collective.

Elemental Excelerator advances solutions to climate change and deploys them in the communities that need them the most. Each year, they fund 15-20 companies up to $1 million to improve systems across categories such as energy, mobility, water, agriculture, and beyond. To date, they have invested in 150 companies.  

Earthshot Ventures is a venture capital firm backing entrepreneurs making a dent in climate change, and it spun out of Elemental in 2021.

Emerson Collective was established and led by Laurene Powell Jobs, and is working to renew some of society’s most calcified systems, creating new possibilities for individuals, families, and communities.

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

• How her work with sea turtle conservation in Puerto Rico and off-grid solar work in India led her to where she is today

• Why it’s so important that the 150 companies that Elemental has funded form close partnerships with local communities for project development

• The genesis of Earthshot Ventures as an experiment to combine top-quartile VC returns with nonprofit support

• Their love of experimentation and their creation of eight financial products to meet the needs of climate founders

• The missing gap of FOAK finance (i.e., first of a kind) as companies go from VC funding to project finance

• Their obsession with moving more capital into climate, especially because 50% of the solutions we need to meet our 2030 climate goals have not yet been commercialized

• How to balance urgency with importance in our calendars

• Why joy is so essential in her work and company culture

• What she looks for in founders they back

• And lots more

---

👍 Quick favor: Please leave a review or 5-star rating on your podcast player. This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here. 🙏

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate founders, CEOs, and investors scale faster via the #1 peer group community in North America. Our invite-only cohorts grow through monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching calls. Today’s highly vetted members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 80,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

And here's our weekly newsletter — A 2-minute summary of climate tech startups, impact investing, and leading with purpose (and a sense of humor). ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

My guest today is Su Sanni, Founder of Dollaride, a mobility company for communities underserved by public transit.

In addition, Su is also:

• Venture Partner with Republic
• Fellow with Visible Hands
• Former Cofounder and CEO of WeDidIt, an online fundraising platform for nonprofits

In this episode, we talked about:

• What a transit desert is and how it costs us billions of dollars in lost productivity annually
• The $10M award that Dollaride won from the state of New York
• Their solid customer traction with over 15,000 riders in just one year
• How his solution relates to the micromobility field more broadly
• His origin story and the inspiration for this business
• How their business is evolving from an Uber-like tech platform to an asset-financing model to make EV purchases easier
• The process by which they retrofit commercial vehicles from ICE to EV
• Why it’s so important that he walks his kids to school
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy it.

And give Su a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our two offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

My guest today is Kelcy Pegler, CEO of FlexGen, an energy storage software provider with $275M in investor capital raised to date.

In addition, Kelcy is the:

• Founding Partner at Charles Joy Ventures
• Former President of NRG Home Solar
• Former Executive Chairman of Sofdesk

In this episode, we talked about:

• Their new 420MWh battery project in California
• How they maximize energy storage revenue via load shifting, peak shaving, and ancillary services
• Their revenue model
• How they don’t sell, but instead help their customers to buy
• Their 10 GW agreement with the world’s largest battery manufacturer
• The recent rapid growth from 30 to over 200 employees
• What Parkinson’s Law is and how to manage it
• What you can learn from children’s books like Elephant and Piggy
• Wisdom from tennis legends
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy it!

And give Kelcy and FlexGen a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: https://entrepreneursforimpact.com

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

WeWard is an app that rewards users for walking more each day. To date, they have 20 million users walking an extra 24% than before having the app. They provide rewards from corporate partners for hitting certain walking goals, and they’ve generated eight figures in revenue while doing so.

Yves has over 10 years of experience in creating and scaling innovative solutions for physical retail, as well as a background in machine learning, big data, web and mobile development, applied mathematics, and cognitive science, with degrees in entrepreneurship and Silicon Valley innovation from Ecole Polytechnique and UC Berkeley.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. How he taught himself behavioral psychology to apply it to his ventures
2. What he learned from Pokemon Go to build WeWard
3. How they earn revenue from three sources and which is the biggest
4. Why they’ve given $1M to charity as a startup themselves

Plus, you'll feel extra cool listening to this one because of his French accent!

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

WeWard - https://www.wewardapp.com

Yves - https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvesbenchimol

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (book) - https://shorturl.at/Worpf

Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion - https://shorturl.at/zpjFx

Lenny’s newsletter (product development) - https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

Duolingo (app to learn new languages) - https://www.duolingo.com

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 80+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $20B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

⭐ My guest today is Loren Burnett, Cofounder and CEO of Prometheus Materials.

Inspired by the composition of coral and seashells, Prometheus Materials combines microalgae with other natural components to form an ultra low-carbon bio-cement and bio-concrete. 

In addition, Loren is a former cofounder, CEO, COO, or CFO for companies that have raised nearly $200M in funding, where he led one IPO and 17 mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and achieved five exits netting shareholders over $375M in gains.

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🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- What he’s learned from building six companies

-How he got the “carbon bug”

-The relationship between his company and biomimicry

-The origin story for the company, including five years of university research with Department of Defense funding

-How they plan to reduce 1 gigaton of GHGs per year at scale

- His unique approach to getting his technology to market

- Their top three customers and investors, including Microsoft

- What it takes to get their new product approved by local building codes

- The importance of knowing thyself so that you can trust your gut instead of listening to your irrational fears

- Why Crossing the Chasm is his favorite startup book

- Their long-term vision that uses biology to manufacture far more than biocement and bioconcrete

- And lots more

---

🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Loren and Prometheus Materials a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: ⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Spring Lane Capital is a private equity firm specializing in providing hybrid project capital for sustainable infrastructure and energy projects.

DevEngine Partners partners with project developers by providing development capital and hands-on development support to de-risk sustainable infrastructure projects.

CREO is a "secret club for billionaires" that connects ultra-high-net-worth individuals and family offices to investment opportunities in sustainability and clean energy.

In addition to co-leading these two organizations, Jason has extensive experience in sustainable finance, including roles at Renewable Resource Group, Acumen Fund, Generation Investment Management, and Encourage Capital.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways.

1. Why he likes to invest in both corporate and project finance at the same company
2. What “venture infrastructure” means as a climate finance niche
3. The importance of relationships vs. transactions
4. How he learns to balance in life by surfing in the ocean

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Jason - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonascott/

CREO - https://www.creosyndicate.org/

DevEngine Partners - https://www.devengine.dev/

Spring Lane - https://springlanecapital.com/

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 85+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $30B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

In this episode, I'm once again trying a new format, something less formal. A solo recording where I talk through a few recent news stories in climate tech finance.

Let me know if you like it.

• https://twitter.com/DrChrisWedding
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherwedding/

In this show, I cover two topics:

(1) Highlights from my newsletter

• 💸 2x valuation increase — SOSV Climate Tech 100 list.
• ☀️ New report — How to finance a “First of a Kind (FOAK)” project.
• 😵 Are you an unconscious leader?
• READ MORE: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com/p/its-getting-hot-in-here-2x-valuation?s=w

(2) My new live course on climate tech funding

• June 1 to 14
• 1-2 live class sessions per week
• 1-2 optional live Q&A sessions per week
• Enrollment capped at 25 students
• 500+ climate investor list (with emails)
• 5-step process for raising capital
• 4 tools for assessing your competitive edge
• 9-step method for improving your 1-page business plan
• 10 top startup funding mistakes to avoid
• Network of peers to support you
• ENROLL HERE: https://maven.com/entrepreneurs-for-impact/fund-your-climate-tech-startup

--

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more. The next live, online course is June 1 to 14.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Trevor Best, Cofounder and CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics.

He's also a member of our Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community at Entrepreneurs for Impact!

Syzygy is commercializing a deep-decarbonization platform dedicated to cleaning up the emissions-heavy chemical industry. They use breakthrough technology pioneered in the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University to harness energy from LED light to power chemical reactions. This new technology has the potential to partially or fully electrify the chemical industry, shifting it to renewable electricity, and cost-effectively reducing its carbon footprint.

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- How he raised over $100M to fund the company

- What photocatalysis means

- How a case of beer and rare astronomical phenomena were key in deciding the company name

- Their work in ammonia cracking, blue hydrogen, and dry reforming

- The projects they’re launching this year with multinational companies from Asia and the US

- The massive cost, energy, and carbon savings made possible through their technology

- What the children’s movie Frozen has taught him

- How his love of science fiction translates to lessons in startup leadership

- And lots more

🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Trevor a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

---

🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: https://entrepreneursforimpact.com

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

My guest today is Taj Ahmad Eldridge.

Taj is the Director of Climate Innovation at Jobs for the Future, and Cofounder of Include Ventures, a fund of funds investor focused on emerging managers at the intersection of “Alpha + Inclusion + Sustainability.”

In addition, Taj is…

• Advisory Panel member @ The Schmidt Family Foundation
• Founding Advisory Board member @ GreenTech Noir
• Board Member @ Homeboy Industries
• Former Director of the Startup Accelerator @ University of California, Riverside
• Former Senior Director for Investment @ the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI)
• And investor in Invictus Growth Partners, SparkCharge, Form Energy, ChargerHelp!, and many more high-impact ventures

In this episode, we talked about:

• Who holds the real power in allocating capital
• The importance of place-based innovation
• How talent is universal, but opportunity is not
• Jobs for the Future’s goals of creating 25,000 new jobs in climate resilience
• The need to reframe climate change as a mission around public health, social equity, and economics
• Two of his portfolio companies led by Black founders and CEOs that are changing federal transportation policy and making EV charging super easy
• How he believes a focus on minority-led ventures creates alpha opportunities
• The need to bring your whole self to work
• Wisdom from the beat poets like Jack Kerouac and one of our favorite books, Dharma Bums
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy it!

And give Taj a shout-out on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Co-led by Dr. Eric Toone, Breakthrough Energy Ventures is a long-term VC investor — anchored by Bill Gates, Ray Dalio, and mission-aligned peers — that aims to build the new, cutting-edge companies that will lead the world to net-zero emissions.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"The first decade of this century saw cleantech v1.0, which was pretty much a failure, so we wanted to do something different. The fund is a 20-year fund instead of a 10-year fund to more closely approximate the timeline for the development of technologies and businesses in this space. We have a very technical organization with around 20 people on the team who have doctoral degrees in chemistry, math, physics, and related fields. The idea was to bring a very technical group of people together to do diligence on these technologies. The first fund is fully deployed. We raised the second fund and started investing out of that at the beginning of this year. We have about 80 companies we’ve invested in across the globe."

"There's been an extraordinary amount of money that has entered this space over the last couple of years, and valuations that have gone through the roof. Eight of our companies over the past six months raised between $250-800 million, and we have a company that will likely raise over a billion dollars in its next round. Even at that level, it is still a drop in the bucket. Money in the whole sustainability space still accounts for single-digit percentages of all venture capital, and capital directed towards energy is less than 1%. It's gratifying to see the new capital in this space, but the investment is still way less than what's required."

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Co-led by COO and Cofounder Roshan Vani, Nexus PMG is a low-carbon, bio-based infrastructure development expert focused on project management, drone monitoring, 3D laser scanning, financial modeling, site selection, fuel supply, offtakes, permitting, FEED studies, EPC contracts, and project execution.

Customers include some of the biggest names in infrastructure and finance, such as Apollo, Riverstone, Cargill, Skanska, Ultra Capital, Ember Infrastructure, and QIC.

Roshan is a solutions-focused executive and advisor with more than 15 years of success across the construction industry. His broad areas of expertise include leadership, team building, risk analysis, business development, cash-flow forecasting, process improvement, client relations, and strategy. 

In addition to prior roles at Bechtel Power Corporation and Fluor, he is the Founder of Cloud EPC, a cloud-based enterprise project management and project controls system for the engineering, procurement, and construction industries.

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way?
• Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

My guest today is Howard Fischer, the Chief Evangelist at Gratitude Railroad and CEO of Basso Capital Management.

Gratitude Railroad's mission is to support investors in moving capital from traditional finance to impact investments that create deep social and environmental impact, without compromising financial returns.

His bio on the GR website is delightful in its brevity and insight into who he is. And I quote:

“Uphill over downhill; Snow over sand; Read over watch; Trees over skyscrapers; Pizza over steak; Conversation over gossip; Disagree over agree; Instinct over spreadsheets; Relationship over contract.”

In this episode, we talked about:

• His 40 years in hedge funds
• How his rebirth in 2013 while not religious was like a metaphorical move from Gordon Gekko to Dalai Lama
• His financial reckoning during the 2008 financial crisis when his hedge fund went from $3B to $300M
• The risks in wearing the golden handcuffs of fat paychecks from big-brand employers
• How philanthropy is broken and government is not a great problem solver
• Why we have to move more profit-driven capital to the climate sector
• Examples of the climate investments they’ve made at Gratitude Railroad, including a focus on organic waste management
• His theme of “Free the Money” and related investments in Climate First Bank and First Women’s Bank
• Why we can’t ask people to eat their broccoli (sorry, you have to listen to understand what this means)
• Some of his favorite books, such as The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche, and The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis
• And lots more

Hope you enjoy.

And give Howard a shout-out on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Learn more:

• Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
• Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Sweep is a SaaS company that helps large companies reduce carbon emissions in their businesses and supply chains. Sample customers include multi-billion-dollar global enterprises such as Saint-Gobain and HP.

Rachel Delacour is the Co-founder and CEO of Sweep. She is also a Board Member at 2MX Organic, Investment Committee member at RAISE France, and Board member at Shine, as well as the former President at France Digitale and Co-Founder & CEO of BIME Analytics (acquired by Zendesk). She also speaks French very well; that's because she is French and lives in France. 

(I wonder who reads these podcast summaries. If that's you, Tweet at me here https://twitter.com/DrChrisWedding. 🤣)

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?
• What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned about funding your growth with outside investors?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Co-led by Cofounder and CEO Moji Karimi, Cemvita Factory is reimagining heavy industries for the net-zero economy via a portfolio of nature-inspired microbial solutions for the oil and gas and mining. Their work focuses on carbon-negative biomanufacturing, biomining, and subsurface biomanufacturing.

Moji is a carbon-negative entrepreneur and a technology futurist. His mission is to create a sustainable future where humans have applied technology to balance the rate of climate change. A future where humans live in harmony with nature. As an operator, he has a track record of taking a range of multidisciplinary ideas to market.

He started the company with his sister, Dr. Tara Kojimi, who has devoted her academic and professional careers to studying biological systems and applying natural principles in the service of creating biologically-inspired technology.

-------

QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way?
• Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like?

Personal

• If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
• What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
• What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family?

-------

PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO mastermind peer groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more. The next live, online course is June 1 to 14. It's capped at only 25 students.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

⭐ My guest today is Andy Moon, CEO and Cofounder of Reunion.

Reunion's mission is to accelerate investment into clean energy. The Inflation Reduction Act created a simpler way to finance solar, wind, battery storage, and other clean energy projects through the sale of tax credits. In July 2023, Reunion launched a marketplace for corporations to identify, due diligence, and purchase tax credits from leading project developers. Reunion raised corporate funding from leading clean energy investors in January 2023, and their founding team previously raised over $2B to finance solar energy projects around the world.

Andy is the former CEO of SunFarmer, a Y Combinator-backed social enterprise that has completed over 1,500 solar energy installations in Asia. Previously, he raised over $200 million from institutional investors to finance solar energy projects in the US and Europe, and worked as a consultant in the energy and buildings practice at McKinsey and Company. He was also an early advisor to Possible Health, a leading public health nonprofit. Andy holds a Phi Beta Kappa honors degree from Stanford University and was named a 2016 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

Our shared experience of the friction required to use tax equity to finance solar projects going back to 2009-2010. How those high transaction costs and bottlenecks are still a part of this financing mechanism today. The drastic increase expected in tax equity funding from around $20B today to over $80B in a few years.

The process he used to pick this new venture. Why his cofounder selection was so important. What he learned from building SunFarmer, a Y Combinator-backed startup funding distributed solar installations in Asia. His 90/10 rule on focus.

What his managed marketplace at Reunion makes tax credit transferability easier between project developers and corporate buyers. How tax credits can fund 30-50% of a project. The costs to buy these credits.

The role of newer technologies in the tax credit landscape, such as hydrogen and biogas. Why his team uses the two-week sprint model to manage performance. How the book Radical Candor has shaped Reunion’s culture.

And lots more!

---

👍 Quick favor:

Please leave a review or 5-star rating on your podcast player. This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here. 🙏

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🌎 To boost your growth in climate tech, Entrepreneurs for Impact can help you with...

2-minute newsletter: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠

Live online course about startup capital raising (coaching, peer feedback): https://t.ly/V6xcB

DIY course about startup capital raising (170 slides, 70-item library, 250-investor list): https://t.ly/QCcl5

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, long-haired "hippie capitalist," and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

⭐ My guest today is Dr. Gilwoo Lee, Founder and CEO of Zordi.

Zordi is a VC-backed agricultural platform blending Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and machine learning to reshape and enhance sustainable greenhouse farming.

Gilwoo is a PhD in AI with experience at Facebook, Dreamworks, and Michigan Venture Capital.

Hope you enjoy it!

And give Gilwoo and Zordi a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

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🌐 LINKS:

Zordi – https://www.zordi.com/ Gilwoo Lee – https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilwoo-lee-581a13199/

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🎙️ PODCAST TOPICS:

Why Kholsa Ventures invested in them. Mainstreaming climate tech solutions by selling on non-climate consumer benefits. Their expansion plans into new crops, business models, and geographies. The role of computer vision and machine learning. How her robots measure pests, plant health, and growth rates to optimize yields. Why she gets up at 5 am. Which billionaires inspire her to be more focused and ambitious.

And lots more!

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🙏 QUICK FAVOR:

Please leave a review or rating on your podcast player.

This helps more listeners discover the climate CEOs and investors I interview here.

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🌎 ABOUT ENTREPRENEURS FOR IMPACT:

2-minute newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Climate CEO peer group community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Live online course about startup capital raising (coaching, peer feedback): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/V6xcB⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

DIY course about startup capital raising (170 slides, 70-item library, 250-investor list): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://t.ly/QCcl5⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Entrepreneurs for Impact is led by Dr. Chris Wedding — a 4x founder, 4x Board member, Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, ax-throwing champ, and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio). 😃

Co-led by Dr. Dmitriy Antropov, the private infrastructure integrated investment team at Partners Group ($119B+ in AUM) focuses on: (1) telecommunication infrastructure, in particular datacenters, (2) energy and mobility transformation, and (3) next-generation healthcare services. 

He has been with Partners Group since 2008 and has 17 years of industry experience. He has originated, led, and executed over USD 1.5B in investments generating 20%+ IRR. Prior to joining Partners Group, he worked at UniCredit Group, L.E.K. Consulting and Apax Partners. He holds a PhD in world economics from Financial University under the Government of Russian Federation, Moscow. He is also a Financial Risk Manager. 

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Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

• Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com
• Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg
• Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS
• Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

⭐ My guest today is ⁠Trina Chiasson⁠, Founder and CEO of ⁠Ovipost⁠, a VC-backed insect protein company creating automation hardware and software in order to scale alternative proteins.

Previously, Trina co-founded and sold a tech company, Infoactive, to Tableau Software. She wrote a juggling pattern notation app and used circus arts to teach physics to low-income students. And she rode her bicycle more than 4,000 miles on a self-supported adventure from Maine to Oregon to raise money for a nonprofit.

So, yeah, she’s pretty cool. ---

🎙️ In this episode, we talked about:

- The kind of person that wants to work with insect protein (The answer? “Fanatical, insane people. We weren’t built for normal life. We hate being bored and we love adventure. As a result, each of us wove a weird, windy path to Ovipost.”)

- The surprising fact that 80% of cultures around the world eat bugs

- How finishing her undergraduate degree in two years relates to her path as an entrepreneur

- The amazing growth rates of her bugs – 50x in 5 weeks

- How she pivoted from a pure tech company coming out of Y Combinator to a bug farm operator in Mississippi and Florida

- The reasons they focus on crickets (the “gateway” insect) and superworms (yum!)

- Why there is no “single bug” solution to insect protein

- How I relate to her work (Hint: Thai-flavored cricket legs washed down with coconut milk soup)

- Why her commitment to vegetarianism for 25 years is not at odds with insect protein

- And lots more

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🙏 Hope you enjoy it!

📣 And give Trina and Ovipost a shout-out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.

---

👍 Please leave a review or rating on your favorite podcast player. This is the #1 way that more listeners can discover the amazing climate CEOs and investors I get to interview here.

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🌎 Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Here's our weekly newsletter — A 3-minute summary of climate tech startups, better habits, and deep work trends: ⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠

Our main program is a Climate CEO Mastermind peer group community: ⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠

Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 4x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 70,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

LiquiDonate is a VC-backed software platform that matches and moves reclaimable items (such as online returns and unsold inventory) into the hands of nonprofits who need them, thereby saving retailers millions of dollars and keeping tons of waste out of landfills.

Disney is a social impact innovator who started as employee number 15 at PostMates. She helped grow the company's customer service and Civic Labs divisions and won awards from TIME Magazine and FAST company. She’s also a feminist, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and an animal rights activist working to be a better-practicing ally for marginalized communities.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. How online returns and excess inventory cost retailers $800B per year in losses
2. Why you should create a Google Doc that tracks your hundreds of small and big wins in career and life
3. What it’s like being a queer women CEO raising VC investment capital
4. How they designed their product matching algorithm and logistics systems to optimize donations, tax credits, and low operating costs

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

LiquidDonate - https://liquidonate.com 

Disney - https://www.linkedin.com/in/disneypetit 

The Leading 100 (recognition for LiquiDonate) - https://the-lead.co/the-leading-100 

Fast Company (recognition for LiquiDonate) - https://shorturl.at/9EOy7 

Ezra Klein podcast - https://shorturl.at/hWJDa 

If Books Could Kill podcast - https://shorturl.at/3R5SO

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 75+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $20B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).

Led by Executive Chairman Brett Isaac, Navajo Power develops large utility-scale solar and solar plus storage projects with a focus on providing energy access and economic benefits to the Navajo Nation and other tribal communities.

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"We are a utility-scale solar and energy storage development company with the mission of maximizing community benefit to the Navajo Nation. We started the company to bring the clean energy revolution to the tribal and indigenous communities that have been forgotten and left behind."

"I believe the majority of the unelectrified homes in the United States are on Navajo Nation property. There are somewhere between 15,000-18,000 homes on Navajo Nation property that lack access to electricity or reliable electricity. I think many of us do not realize that some of these homes that you drive by each day do not have running water although large transmission lines run overhead."

Here is the transcript summary of the podcast.

--

Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change.

We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls.

Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members.

To request more information on membership, click here.

Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

My guest today is Astrid Atkinson, Co-founder and CEO of Camus Energy.

Camus Energy is a VC-backed software company serving power utilities with analytics and forecasting, real-time monitoring, and advanced control for local resources to help decarbonize the grid.

Astrid was a technical writer who worked her way up to become an executive in engineering at Google. She’s also a board member at the Gridwise Alliance and an Aussie who occasionally unveils her delightful accent. In her free time, she likes to find the connections between crocheting, dog training, and growing a world-changing company.

In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.

1. How she shortened the sales cycle of selling into power utilities
2. What factors have helped her raise $26M in investor capital
3. How the Myth of Sisyphys relates to her company name and the climate change fight
4. What she learned from being a Google executive aat a time when the company experienced a one-million-fold load growth

🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:

Camus Energy - https://www.camus.energy

Astrid Atkinson - https://www.linkedin.com/in/astridatkinson

Myth of Sisyphys - https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Sisyphus-Other-Essays/dp/0679733736

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How (book) - https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/055380684X

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule (Paul Graham essay) - https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Man’s Search for Meaning (book) - https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/080701429X

📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:

Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 80+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $20B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:

Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:

To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews

🤔 PODCAST HOST:

Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).