Alex Leigh 🎙🎥

In the UK we need to get really FOAK-ing good at building hardware to fight climate change. Alongside private investment, and in the run-up to the UK's upcoming budget, the UK government can have a truly catalytic impact on enabling and fast-tracking First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) deployments. That's why I took part in the production of this new report by Cleantech for UK and Earth Set – “Powering Up the UK's Cleantech Advantage: Unlocking Investment for First-of-a-Kind Projects”. First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) cleantech projects represent a massive economic opportunity for the UK to grow its economy in the long term, whilst hitting its climate targets. Mission Zero Technologies has experienced this first-hand through the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero's GGR Competition. Read the report here for more details: https://lnkd.in/ehVXKtsr Thanks to Sarah Mackintosh and Amy Rennison for leading on this! #directaircapture #FOAK #netzero #innovation #carboncapture #firstofakind #cleantech #uk #budget

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Stop this removal-only obsession in the carbon markets. What kind of hare-brained approach is that? We need avoidance even more than we need removals. This article reminds me of the analogy I made a few months ago about a sinking boat. No amount of bailing water with buckets will save you if the hole in the hull is getting bigger. Remember, if deforestation was a country, it would be the world's third largest emitter. And no, you cannot just demand/legislate that poor rural people stop deforesting without providing alternative income. That is why forest carbon exists. It takes some form of totalitarian mindset (and/or total lack of understanding of rural economies)to think one can just ban things they do not like. https://lnkd.in/eCddBRwt

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📣 We’ve got a big ESG_VC event planned for Tuesday next week – featuring the latest updates to our measurement framework, news of our 2025 benchmarking with the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA), and an introduction to our new platform partners… 📣 On the afternoon of Tuesday 26 November, we’ll be gathering 200+ VCs for the latest update on the ESG_VC Measurement Framework – from what it covers to how it informs industry-leading research, and how you can now work with our accredited data collection partners. This will be our first event delivered in partnership with our cohort of platform partners: Apiday, Novata, and PortF. I’m excited to share with our members how these partners can support a big step up in your ESG initiatives. Join us for a jam-packed event that will feature: 🟢 An update from Suzi Gillespie of the BVCA on how you can take part in our 2025 research – we analysed ESG performance in c.600 VC-backed companies in 2024 and we’re looking to deliver an even more ambitious piece of research next year… 🟢 Insights from Emily Havers of Fidelity International Strategic Ventures on the updates that have been made to the framework and what it means for our members, their portfolio companies, and the broader ecosystem. 🟢 Perspectives from Emily Matthews of Oxford Science Enterprises and Nina Foote of Volution on how the ESG_VC Measurement Framework has supported their work on ESG. 🟢 Presentations from our platform partners: Edouard Audi of Apiday, Conor O'Laoire’Laoire of Novata, and Alex Lu of PortF. It’s going to be a good one so do register. Link to sign up in the comments! #ESG_VC #sustainability #venturecapital

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Striking: Zenobē, a UK climate tech startup, raised £600m from KKR and £270m from Infracapital, bypassing VC entirely. Zenobe captures excess energy from wind farms to stabilize the grid and reduce gas power reliance. This means: Zenobe secured one of 2023's biggest startup fundraises — without any venture capital. #battery #fundraising #venturecapital #energystorage #infrastructure #growthinflection Sifted: https://lnkd.in/g8wF-xA5

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🔬💡 New research from the British Business Bank reveals a promising trend: life sciences #venturecapital funds are outperforming the market in realized returns. 🚀📈 It’s no coincidence that at ETA Technologies, we’re proud to work with many investment firms focused on life sciences #startups. Why? We leverage the power of psychometric testing combined with #AI to identify the highest-potential teams — because in the life sciences world, investing in people is key. 👥🔑 🧬 Discovering a brilliant scientist with a groundbreaking invention is one thing. But finding a team that blends #innovation and entrepreneurial grit to transform that idea into a successful business? That’s where true unicorns are born. 🦄🌟 source: https://lnkd.in/ektyKZHJ What qualities do you think make a life sciences team truly investment-worthy? Let’s discuss! 👇

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We are very delighted to announce the launch of The Mills Fabrica's 2023 Impact Report ! Outlining our innovation framework, the Impact Report is a vital gateway that gives access to the public and audiences a thorough guide on how we structure our impact and innovation landscape across our diverse business streams, ranging from our VC investment fund, startups incubation program, global innovation challenge program and partnerships, all the while embedding sustainability metrics for impact evaluation. As we strive towards creating a more sustainable future spanning across both #Techstyle and #Agrifood tracks, we are leveraging our resources and network to cultivate a more sustainable and promising future on all fronts, with our best efforts. Download the Impact Report here: https://bit.ly/3XzmbB0 #TheMillsFabrica #NanFungGroup #Techstyle #Agrifood #Innovations

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🌍🚀 Space Sustainability: UK Investments to Help Clean Up Space Space is essential to our daily lives, powering services like TV, GPS, weather forecasting, and banking. However, the growing threat of space debris could jeopardize these vital functions. With over 130 million pieces of debris in orbit, the risk of collisions with active satellites is rising. To tackle this challenge, the UK government is supporting space sustainability through investment and international cooperation. Key initiatives include two Active Debris Removal missions awarded to Astroscale and ClearSpace, which are pioneering efforts to remove defunct satellites and debris from Low Earth Orbit. These projects, backed by the UK Space Agency, are shaping a safer and more sustainable space environment for generations to come. 🌌 #SpaceSustainability #Sustainability #SpaceDebris #Innovation #UKSpace #Astroscale #ClearSpace #TechForGood #FutureSpace #LEO Watch the COSMIC mission video: https://lnkd.in/eHBWmaQY

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Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) illustrates the current "readiness" of #ClimateTechs + their potential impact on carbon reduction. As shown, many techs are at an early stage of being able to have a material impact. Concerningly, some tech funds recently returned capital back to investors recently + closed their funds - citing inability to fund capital intensive techs, found in areas like ClimateTech. This in part may be contributing to the $2 trillion shortfall in ClimateTech, that Deloitte estimates. What this may mean for the future? - The migration of LPs to global, super VC funds within ClimateTech, given the large capital pools needed to fund tech development - Greater specialization from smaller funds, energizing more niche elements of the ClimateTech market - but also altering their / LP's risk profile - A greater role to be played by debt financing in funding growth entities at an earlier stage - impacting cashflow dynamics Will be an interesting space to watch moving forward. We at The Proptech Connection are constantly working with all parts of the Proptech ecosystem. From the leading LPs, funds, techs and adopters in market, providing an independent view. Reach out to us today to find out how we can help. #InvestorTrends #Strategy #Global Ivo van Breukelen Stuart Daun Kiki C. Ethan Ward

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Can you hazard a guess as to which overlooked sector's stock performance and potential is on par with tech and AI? If you guessed utilities, you'd be right. In the US, utility companies Vistra and Constellation have outperformed Nvidia over the last few months, despite Nvidia being the talk of the town. This is likely partly attributable to the huge demand for power necessary to drive and sustain the growth of tech companies. In the UAE, the earning potential for utility companies is even higher due to the monopolistic nature of the market. Furthermore, we have ample data showing that companies like DEWA and Empower have strong balance sheet fundamentals, steady funding and consistent growth. Unlike in the US, analyst coverage is still catching up, and the fact that these underlying strengths have yet to be factored into the share prices means that these companies are low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking. To understand this idea further, find the full analysis in my Gulf News column today: https://lnkd.in/dM8Vuacj #uae #dubai #adx #dfm #capitalmarkets #uaecapitalmarkets #stockmarket #uaestockmarket #dubaistockmarket #stocks #dubaistocks #uaestocks #dewa #empower #nvidia #salik #parkin #bayanat #presight #ipo #uaeipo #dubaiipo #vistra #constellation #utility #utilities #utilitycompany #utilitycompanies #uaeutilitycompanies #dubaiutilitycompanies #usa #us #america #americanstockmarket #nasdaq #ftse #value #valuation #valuecreation #growth #valueinvesting #capitalasset #asset #gains #capitalgains #dividends #ai #artificialintelligence #crypto #cryptocurrency #investing #investindubai #investor #investorstrategy #investmentstrategy #investment #hedgefund #venturecapital #privateequity #equity #data #privatesector #publicsector #demand #supply #business #uaebusiness #uaebusinessnews #news #dubaibusiness #dubaibusinessnews #businessnews #market #marketnews #monopoly #utilitysector #profitability #debt #debtfinance #finance #financenews #liquidity #primarymarket #secondarymarket #earnings #earningpotential

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A HUGE thank you to everyone involved in publishing the latest report from ESG_VC and the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) today! The report is packed full of useful insights into how start-ups are actually performing across their work on environmental, social, and governance issues. There's also a brand new roadmap for ESG in start-ups with specific guidance on the initiatives to implement from Pre-Seed through to Series C and beyond. A particular shout out to everyone involved in the production including Suzi Gillespie and Ewa Skornas at the BVCA, David Strong and Dianne Skurray at Marriott Harrison, and Susannah Philipson and Nadeem Muzaffar at Seven Hills, who designed this beautiful report. I'm also massively grateful for all of the hard work that our VC contributors put into compiling data from 587 portfolio companies across the UK, Europe, and around the world - a few names to mention include Ashleigh, Shanice, Lauren, Laure, Michelle, Jason, Hessel, Emily, Beth, Joe, James, Eugenia, Alex, Grace, Emma, Emily, Lucy, Cordelia, Nina, Raj, and Rob. Thank you to you all! And thanks as ever to the remaining members of our steering group for their ongoing support of ESG_VC - Antonia at Seedcamp, Leslie at Astanor Ventures, Natalie at Lakestar, Andrew at Par Equity, and of course Karen McCormick for all of your support at Beringea! Check out the full report via the link in the comments! And let us know what you think about it! #ESG_VC #sustainability #venturecapital

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To everybody working on hydrogen plans for government, large companies and startups: I would strongly adivise you to read this article in yesterday's Financial Times!

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In the debate about whether the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) credits qualify to Net Zero, the SBTI is taking an incredibly obtuse approach. They claim that companies that pollute should only 'inset' (i.e. reduce carbon inside their own value chains). Key facts: 🌳 deforestation and degradation happens mostly in poor countries, mostly through poverty related activities. ⛪ represents well over 10% of total emissions. 3️⃣ If it were a country, deforestation would be the world's third largest emitter. #REDD+ carbon (Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) actually contributes to reduce our planet emissions. EXAMPLE: Imagine a company produces 3 tons of carbon per year. And a poor village in Mozambique is deforesting and emitting 2 tons of carbon per year. This brings the total carbon emissions to 5 tons/year.   ☑ In case A) (what SBTI suggests), the company reduces its emissions by, say 2 ton/year. The village does nothing. The total carbon emissions are now down to 3 tons/year. ✅ In Case B ) (what REDD does), the company pays the village not to deforest. The total emissions are now down to 3 tons/ year. One could argue that the effects on the environment are the same in both cases. But THEY ARE NOT. ❌ The village is causing much more damage to the planet by deforesting than the company by polluting. The biodiversity loss, the ecosystem loss, the rural livelihood damage is much worse when the village continues to damage its environment. 🌍  In the case of Carbon, the emissions are GLOBAL in nature, but the ecosystem effects are LOCAL. Ceteris paribus, it is MUCH BETTER for a polluter to buy REDD carbon (or other removal based Nature based credits) than to reduce its emissions.  But there is more! Some things the SBTI seems to completely ignore - 💡 reducing industry emissions costs much more than offsets (i.e. paying someone elses reductions) - we could reduce deforestation emissions faster than companies' for the same $. The planet DOES NOT CARE where those emissions are reduced! 💡 Nothing will stop companies from ALSO reducing their own emissions while offsetting residual ones. In fact, research by Everland shows that companies that offset do more to reduce their own emissions. 💡 even if they wanted, companies COULD NEVER GET TO NET ZERO USING VCM CREDITS. The VCM represents less than 1% of todays' emissions. One company could get to net zero using VCM credits ONLY if it were the only one buying those credits. But if all companies push for net zero (e.g. because regulation makes them), the prices will skyrocket, and the majority of their effort will still be in reducing their own emissions.  💡 Finally, Remember between 10% and 18% of today's emissions are considered unabatable (i.e. you cannot reduce them, they will always be there). #VCM #REDD+ #NatureBasedSolutions #ClimateChange

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The art of synthesis for deep tech founders. In a conversation with a founder last week, we were exploring a new business idea. At the heart of the idea is some complicated bio-technology, a very difficult to navigate supply chain and an expensive capex build. It was also quite boring on the surface and hard to imagine a crowd of investors downstream fighting to get into the next round. But the founder explained it to me in a way that electrified the concept in my mind. They came at it from a world of geopolitical shifts, a gaping opportunity to effortlessly reflow supply chains and a magical technology that would sustainably deliver industrial advantage to countries. The founder started with the WHY and led me to the WHAT. See Simon Sinek - https://lnkd.in/dE4RV4Sj for more on this. - WHY: painting a picture of a massive market problem that most people understand. - HOW: building a business model around an existing flow of that market and leaning into it instead of trying to force a change. So many companies fail when founders think they can bend a whole planet around their company. - WHAT: a unique invention that no one else has. After the WHY and HOW, I am hungry to understand the WHAT. The work to get to this simple idea takes a special kind of work - SYNTHESIS. It involves iterating thousands of times over a vast information space that includes world events, government policies, industrial trends, technological invention. It requires an always-on radar that scans the world looking for micro-moments of hypothetical product market fit and smushing them all together until a single cohesive story emerges that a founder can unite a community around. - I'm a Partner at Main Sequence, a VC purpose-built to create global companies from scientific ideas with the inventors who imagine them. I build-out-loud here: https://lnkd.in/gENhMrbU Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog: https://lnkd.in/dAXEMWTr

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In the last few years, we’ve met a number of carbon accounting startups. I’ve been somewhat skeptical because I thought there was a lot of greenwashing, mainly for two reasons: 1) A lot of emissions data is based on very rough estimates 2) Many carbon offset projects come with huge uncertainty Louis Coppey has dug into this a little while ago and concluded that obtaining reliable Scope 3 emissions data is so complicated that solving it requires industry-specific software platforms. I've written more about this in the blog post below. Spoiler alert: Meet Root Global! :-)

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We had the pleasure of speaking to the inimitable Gordon Sanghera, co-founder and CEO of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, valued at around $6.8bn in 2021. Gordon somewhat accidentally ended up as an entrepreneur, breaking the conventional VC wisdom around 'born founders'. The technology is wild - democratising access to genomic sequencing giving us a new understanding of living organisms. In the episode of Riding Unicorns, we cover: 00:00 Defining Entrepreneurship 00:55 Understanding Oxford Nanopore's Technology 06:10 Gordon's Journey to Founding Oxford Nanopore 12:09 Commercialization Challenges and Strategies 16:27 Building a Strong Founding Team 20:55 Navigating the Ups and Downs of Deep Tech 25:54 Innovative Applications of Nanopore Technology 28:57 Company Culture and Operational Insights 35:05 Attracting Talent in a Competitive Market 37:22 The IPO Experience and Future Outlook https://lnkd.in/eQZVSGeK

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In 2023, the largest segments in the climate tech vertical were low-carbon mobility, industry, grid infrastructure, intermittent renewable energy sources (solar and wind). 50 VC deals for climate tech companies in 2023 exceeded $150 million, and of these, nine exceeded $500 million. Companies that need a lot of capital to execute on a big vision can succeed today. #climatetech #climateVC #climate

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🌍 Pitchbook has shared their European VC Investment in Climate Tech report 🌍 swipe 👉 to read the highlights on Europe's evolving climate tech investment landscape #ClimateTech #Sustainability #GreenEnergy #VC #Europe #CleanTech #Innovation #NetZero #GreenDeal #CleanEnergy

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Lowerfaster represents lowering emissions of methane and CO2 in the immediate term without enormous economic costs and impact of premature capital stock turnover. One way this can be achieved is through conversions of existing user site resident equipment (capital stock) to fuels with lower emissions. Economically viable Hydrogen conversions of gas turbines for power/heat generation, ICE engine truck fleets, and marine vessels are good examples of where reductions could be made quickly in otherwise difficult areas to achieve emissions goals. While not perfect, lower emissions earlier with less economic disruption achieves the goal of less overall CO2 and methane in the atmosphere - thereby extending the emissions budget and allocating scarce funds to solving more immediate intractable problems. The following deck explains how Hydrogen derived from hydrocarbons and other sources can be an effective, economically viable and complimentary alternative to electricity as a zero emissions energy carrier. Significant progress is being made to lower the cost of Hydrogen and solve hydrogen transportation issues without the use of scarce or difficult to expand electrical resources. There are many ventures and firms pursuing these goals, two good examples that I have recently worked with through CDL https://lnkd.in/g4DuSCPi are Aurora Hydrogen https://lnkd.in/gw82KwSE and Aryton Energy https://ayrtonenergy.com/ https://lnkd.in/gvvJcbPA #lowerfaster #energytransition #hydrogen #canadianenergy

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🌿 A question that I get asked often is "Why is there a sudden global interest in natural capital and agriculture from the investment community?". 😎 Its true, there is growing interest in #naturalcapital and #regenerativeagriculture 👨‍🌾 . In the past two decades, there has been significant investment interest in #renewables and #carbonavoidance, and this has now expanded to include #carbonremoval (an essential form of #climatemitigation), leading to the growing interest in #naturalcapital investment and important diversification for #impact investment. 👨‍💻 This has been facilitated by better tracking of nature 🦅 and natural forms of #carbonsequestration 🌲 through #technology and #innovation. Innovation in this area is essential to continue the develop natural capital investment. Regenerate Asset Management combines the benefits of sustainable agriculture with the monitoring precision of natural capital in its regenerative agriculture investment themes. Essential to facilitating better tracking of our investment's positive impact on #nature. Making food, impactful 🌻 It great to be coming back to World Agri-Tech for a second year in London to discuss the technology development for agriculture and natural capital. I'm looking forward to joining the 9.50am panel on "Financing the Green Transition in Food & Agriculture" chaired by Gemma Cranston with fellow panelists Johnny el Hachem, Laurent-David Charbit, Maria Carvalho and Peter Bachmann. If you are joining the event next Monday and Tuesday, come and listen! Regenerate Outcomes, Tikehau Capital, Edmond de Rothschild, Pollination,NatWest, Gresham House, Mad Capital, Trailhead Capital, Rebalance Earth, MERIKA ADVISORY, Ryan Cameron, David Bates, Nicholas Burlington, Addy Windsor-Clive, Jeremy Stroud, Ananya Manna, Matt Jordon Agenda: World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit, September 26-27, 2023 (https://lnkd.in/emiN5AMh)

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