Techstars Climate Tech Podcast

Renewable energy startups — and the entrepreneurs who found them — are crucial to the fight against climate change. These founders are smart, driven, and agile enough to see the opportunities in energy right now, and dive in. This is a fascinating time in energy, as renewable sources become cheaper and easier to democratize, reaching a more racially and economically diverse set of users, and big utility companies are also starting to see the need to get on board with sustainable initiatives.

It wasn’t long ago that climate tech was unpopular. We’re grateful to see that changing. But here are some words of wisdom from Yoav to other entrepreneurs who are doing the right thing, even when no one else believes in their mission: “Don't be afraid to do the unpopular thing, because the rest of the world is just going to catch up.”

Listen to learn about community solar, energy savings at home, learning to work with utility companies, the importance of infrastructure, and more.

Follow Solstice on Twitter @solarforgood

Follow Yoav on Twitter @yoavlurie

Techstars personnel and/or guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, and not the opinion of either Techstars or any company discussed in this podcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities are for illustrative and/or informational purposes only and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investor or prospective investor, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by Techstars. Certain of Techstars funds own (or may own in the future) securities in some of the companies discussed in this podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In order to survive the climate change crisis, we’re going to need solutions from all over. That’s why Hannah Davis, Program Director of the Techstars Sustainability Accelerator in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, invited Dr. Chip Fletcher, Professor at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, and Sierra Peterson, entrepreneur and climate tech investor, to talk about climate change and the solutions they see coming from research and from business — and how entrepreneurs can get involved.

To quote Sierra: “For anybody who is thinking about starting a company in this space and devoting your time and talent to working on climate solutions, I can tell you your work matters. This is the defining challenge of our time. And if you succeed, you will influence the quality of life on earth and the only known life that we know in the universe.”

Listen for a profoundly informed and thoughtful conversation about where we’re at now — and practical solutions for how we can save the planet and ourselves.

Follow Chip on Twitter @fletcher_chip

Follow Sierra on Twitter @sierrap

Techstars personnel and/or guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, and not the opinion of either Techstars or any company discussed in this podcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities are for illustrative and/or informational purposes only and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investor or prospective investor, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by Techstars. Certain of Techstars funds own (or may own in the future) securities in some of the companies discussed in this podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From carbon capture to hydrogen to climate intervention/geo-engineering to synthetic biology and more, exciting new tech, and new uses of established tech, are transforming how we work to slow and reverse climate change.

Clay Dumas, Partner at Lowercarbon Capital, is watching the growth in climate tech companies carefully, and investing in them: his investment thesis, described on the Lowercarbon Capital website, is to “support the firm’s preposterously ambitious companies working to undo global warming while making real money in the process.”

To him, this is why they founded the Lowercarbon Capital, as well as the best way to encourage progress: “Investing in some of these early stage technologies might be the fastest this way to achieve what it was that we had set out to do, which is to bring down concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and over the course of the next three years, as what began as an opportunistic investing deal by deal and turn into a full fledged venture fund.”

Listen for an assessment of the breakthrough technologies in climate tech right now, from someone who is putting his money where his mouth is.

Follow Clay on Twitter

Follow Lowercarbon Capital on Twitter

Techstars personnel and/or guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, and not the opinion of either Techstars or any company discussed in this podcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities are for illustrative and/or informational purposes only and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investor or prospective investor, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by Techstars. Certain of Techstars funds own (or may own in the future) securities in some of the companies discussed in this podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re all trying to wrap our minds around climate change, its enormous consequences if left unchecked, and how people and organizations can fight it.

In this first episode of the Techstars Climate Tech podcast, host Cody Simms, SVP for Climate & Sustainability at Techstars, talks with Dr. Kamal Kapadia, Cofounder of Terra.do, about the big questions, like what exactly is going on with our planet, and what our lives may look like in 20 or 50 years, before diving into the ways that technology can help.

Listen for answers to these key questions:

• What are the biggest, hardest problems to solve about climate change?
• Where is technology a solution? Policy?
• Where is technology ready, but in need of marketplace support?
• How can entrepreneurs and startups help?

The good news? Kamal is an intelligent optimist, and she offers a lot of reasons why we can be hopeful.

Follow Kamal on Twitter @kamal_kapadia

Techstars personnel and/or guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, and not the opinion of either Techstars or any company discussed in this podcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities are for illustrative and/or informational purposes only and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investor or prospective investor, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by Techstars. Certain of Techstars funds own (or may own in the future) securities in some of the companies discussed in this podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

They might seem like two different worlds, but the reality is, there is a close relationship between health and climate. Once we peel back some of the layers, the similarities are ever-present.

In this episode, Cody chats with Adaptrack CEO Niraj Swami, who is also part of the Nature Conservancy with Conservation Technology Strategy & Enablement, about the intersection of health and climate, and how they have parallel models with a common customer — humans.

“What excited me about climate data was that the planet doesn't lie. You ask somebody how they feel, they’ll tell you no good, so-so, but when you ask the planet how it feels, it gives you a number. That's good stuff for AI, the numbers are good things for AI.”

Cody and Niraj also talk about AI’s ability to empower scientists so they could accelerate their climate-related work through smart solutions and decision-making support, and the potential collaboration of space tech and climate tech. Don’t miss the pair discussing the mitigation aspect of AI and predicting outcomes in a much more measured and confident fashion.

Follow Niraj on Twitter @nswami

Follow Cody on Twitter @codysimms

Listen & subscribe to The Techstars Climate Tech Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.