Active Impact Investments

Who is the best CFO you’ve worked with? 🧐💰 One of our highest performing portfolio companies is hiring a CFO and we want to help them find exceptional candidates. 👏This is a rare opportunity to join the leadership team at a climate tech company on a strong trajectory. Please reach out to Sam Hasty, Cayley Dow, CPHR or Mike Winterfield with any thoughts or recommendations. But that’s not all. 🤯🔥 We’re also hiring for a junior role on our investment team at Active Impact Investments, and often the best candidates come via referrals within our network. Please encourage the best and brightest to apply to our team here: https://lnkd.in/g5Zjebqx 

Thanks to BCBusiness for featuring Mike Winterfield last week and highlighting our journey! 🙏 🔎 Read more about Mike’s experience raising our first impact fund (with no prior venture experience) in 2017: https://lnkd.in/guQ9C_bq

🌍 The majority of all venture capital in the world sits in three cities: San Francisco, New York and Boston, and that’s where many of the top performing funds are headquartered, right? Yes, but... More and more, we are noticing new geographies popping up with really interesting start-up, innovation and financing hubs. One of our goals is to help make BC one of those top performing regions, specifically for climate tech. We share this ambition with InBC Investment Corp., so it's with great excitement that we announce their decision to join our Fund III as a partner and our newest institutional investor! 🚀🌟 Special thanks to Jill Earthy, Leah Nguyen, Heather Tanaka, MBA, Amanda Y. Tong and the entire InBC team for your collaboration. We greatly appreciate the trust you’ve placed in us and we look forward to working with you to further bolster the cleantech ecosystem in our province! https://lnkd.in/gZ-yyXD9

We’re excited to share that our very own Qhalisa Khan will be speaking at MaRS Discovery District Climate Impact this week in Toronto! Alongside Hamed Noori of SenseNet Inc., Max Lenarciak of SLY, Jaclyn Whittal of The Weather Network, and Zackery Hodgen of FireRein Inc, Qhalisa will be sharing our research and viewpoints on how tech can combat & contain catastrophic wildfires. 👏 🕚 Check it out on Wednesday at 11am!

📢 Hiring can make or break a startup. That’s why helping founders build high-impact teams is one of the most valuable ways we support our portfolio companies. In her latest blog, our Talent Network Manager Cayley Dow, CPHR shares: 🌟 How our 40+ years of HR expertise helps hire smarter and scale faster 🎯 Why we hire for potential, not just resumes 📊 The results and impact for companies like Aquacycl and Lumo Read the full post to see how we help solve recruitment challenges to accelerate our portfolio companies’ climate tech solutions. https://lnkd.in/guW8Hre8

👏 We’re thrilled to see our portfolio company Lumo featured as one of “5 Innovative Companies Fighting Climate Change” by Inc. Magazine. Founded by Devon Wright, Lumo is revolutionizing agriculture with smart irrigation valves that schedule watering, save operating and labor costs, detect leaks and protect precious resources. 💧🌱 Solutions like Lumo are essential for creating a more sustainable future.  🔎 Read Gabrielle Bienasz latest piece in Inc. Magazine here: https://lnkd.in/gU53G_Ma

Jetson's CEO Stephen Lake - alongside his North co-founders Aaron Grant and Matthew Bailey - is on a mission to shrink the green premium on heat pump installations. 🌍 Their approach? Solve three critical challenges all at once: 1️⃣ Make heat pumps more affordable 2️⃣ Slash installation costs 3️⃣ Improve consumer experience with great service and smart software We’re proud that Jetson is part of our Fund III portfolio and excited about their vision for accessible, sustainable home energy solutions. 💚 📖 Dive into Sean Silcoff's feature in The Globe and Mail to learn more about Stephen Lake and the bold future of Jetson: https://lnkd.in/gTKFKXWy

🌍 We’re in the business of impact, and investment facilitates that impact. But that investment also needs to grow and create significant returns to create the change we want to see long-term 🌍 We invest in companies where there is a strong connection between economic growth and emissions mitigation. 👀 Here are some exciting financing updates from our portfolio companies this past month: Exit - Jaza (Fund I)  🌞 Jaza’s clean energy solutions have powered communities in Tanzania and Nigeria, created jobs, and completed over 3M battery swaps. As Jaza brings on a new strategic partner to bolster growth across Sub-Saharan Africa, we exited our position in Jaza with a ~5X return. We’re very proud to have played a small part in their impactful journey. Series A Financing - Flair Systems ❄️ Flair is continuously improving its product suite to support a complete set of home HVAC solutions while reducing electricity usage and costs. We are thrilled that Flair raised $3M from investors, including a major strategic partner to support distribution growth and more innovation. Follow-on investment - Othersphere 🗺️ Othersphere has seen a recent uptick in traction for their hydrogen siting solution and their near-team solution for data centers. We are excited to grow our ownership in Othersphere and participate in their recent financing so they can mature both of these solutions in advance of a larger financing round next year. — #ActiveImpactInvestments #ClimateTech #Emissions #Financing #VentureCapital #ClimateTechCanada

Last month, Sam Hasty shared his thoughts on what we call the “Chain of Fire” - the various stages of a forest fire and corresponding opportunities for management. 🤔 Why have we been researching this? Because forests are burning at an unprecedented rate: 25M+ hectares in Canada during 2023, releasing 0.5Gt of CO2 into our atmosphere. 🌲 📖 Read more from Sam here: http://bit.ly/3UvFUQ7 We also have some exciting financing updates from last month: 💸 Flair Systems Bridge Financing (Fund II): Flair secured $3M to advance its energy-efficient HVAC solutions. 🔋 Othersphere Investment (Fund II): We’re supporting Othersphere with $1M as they expand hydrogen tech for data centers. And finally, here’s your TL;DR from more of our portcos last month: 💧 Lumo prepared for 5x scale by completing their PCB redesign. 🔁 Dispatch Goods cleaned and processed 340K units - 50K units more than September, and their highest volume to date. 🤖 RIPTK Technologies advanced commercial discussions with leading operators around the world and made significant progress on a new, complementary business model. 🌾 Clean Crop Technologies, Inc. announced a collaboration with Diageo subsidiaries, East African Breweries PLC (EABL), focussed on sorghum trials. ☀️ King Energy launched a 1.4 MW solar program at Yuba Sutter Mall, providing energy to over 50 local businesses in North Carolina. 🏗️ Hyfluence received verbal notice for two new significant refuelling projects. 🌆 Audette.io secured a contract with the 2nd largest automation and energy management provider globally. 🚆 RailVision Analytics identified optimization opportunities to accelerate customer onboarding time from months to hours. ⚡ Relyion Energy Inc welcomed Nick Seroff as VP Engineering and is gaining recognition from Amazon, NVIDIA, NYU Stern School of Business and others through Caltestbed and the University of California. ⚡ ThinkLabs AI, Inc. was featured in Cleantech Group's 2024 CleanTech 50 to Watch list. 👚 Tengiva was featured in 48Hrs in the Valley with C100 and spoke about advancements in textile technology. 🌀 Clir Renewables partnered with one of Europe’s largest renewable energy owners to sign three farms in Taiwan. 🧊 GlacierGrid partnered with Delta Air Lines to protect over $10B in high-value food and pharmaceuticals across cargo operations. 🔌 SWTCH was ranked 18th in The Globe and Mail's fastest-growing companies in Canada, with 2154% revenue growth over the past three years. 🛍️ Social Nature launched a partnership with Naturally Network, a network with 42K contacts across 19K companies. ⚡ Optiwatt surpassed 11K new grid-connected EVs in California - halfway to their 22K goal with the California Energy Commission. – 📩 Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get full access to company updates here: https://lnkd.in/gbmwNg2C 

Well, that happened fast…! 🤯💰 1️⃣ Last month, Casey Donahue, the founder of Optiwatt (Fund II), raised $5M USD from Active Impact Investments and a group of investors that wanted to increase ownership. We are thrilled to be part of this follow on investment in Optiwatt, positioning them for a strong Series B. 💸💪 2️⃣ In a second follow-on investment last month, GlacierGrid (Fund I) closed another $2.75M USD. We were excited to increase our position in a business with increasingly strong evidence of market pull and sales exceeding target in H1 2024. 📈 👏 We’re excited for what the future holds for both Optiwatt and GlacierGrid!