Alex Capecelatro

To all #climatetech #founders and #funders in NYC and beyond, please join us on June 5th for an evening of #breakthrough #decarbonization #innovation at the ReGen Accelerator #DemoDay! 🎉 Get ready to be inspired by our cohort of #earlystage startups: ​ ▶ aich2 is engineering a novel #hydrogen ecosystem, built around Solid Hydrogen carriers. ​​ ▶ carbogenics produces sustainable #carbon adsorbents from difficult-to-recycle organic waste, including coffee cups and wastewater screenings ​​ ▶ TeamStack.ai is driving better performance by harnessing #AI, data, & the collective intelligence of teams. ​ ▶ Tesleon LLC uses compelling characters and #storytelling to instill compassion for communities and our planet in the next generation. ​ ▶ Tolam Earth is a trusted #marketplace for high-quality, high-impact carbon offsets. Don't miss out! Secure your spot below. Big thank you to Brown Rudnick LLP for hosting this event, our partners at ClimateHaven for their hard work and dedication during the entire program, and to our incredible network of #mentors and #facilitators, each of whom have dedicated time to working with these incredible founders this spring, including Jason Ambrose, Marina Rakhlin, Lauren Zujkowski, Stuart DeCew, Matt Puccini Andy Rooks, Nina Raab, and Bill Stephney. And of course Shai Tamary, Lars Korby and Sarah Cleveland, without whom we would not be able run such a #program. #innovation #sustainability #climateaction #accelerator

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Last week, I had the pleasure of moderating a discussion on navigating FOAK in climate tech at the Greentown Labs Summit in Boston (which had >600 people!!). Here’s a quick rundown of what was shared by Katherine St. James of Spring Lane Capital, Paris Smalls, PhD of Eden GeoPower, and Hannah Friedman of Planeteer Capital: 🌱 What is the definition of FOAK? We discussed how the term can be controversial - it's almost too general because it doesn't identify what kind of "First" FOAK refers to - first team project? First geography? First of a technology in a sector? First time for the integration of a system? It's also too specific because it has the word "first" in it, which can be anathema to later stage / project finance investors. 💰 Partnerships for Funding FOAK Projects We discussed how important it is to build a blended capital stack & use off-balance sheet capital for a project so you're not using the most expensive equity dollars to fund an infrastructure project with low-ish IRR. We also talked through being creative about using corporate partners to provide in-kind services or ink some agreement (at least an LOI) to attract this funding. 🏛 Role of Government We talked about how government capital is seen by investors & how it can be catalytic for FOAK. Government capital can provide validation that a startup has passed a rigorous diligence process by a third party - and incentives like grants or credits can help improve returns for the first project- but it's important to be doing this in conjunction with getting customer validation and to be able to present line of sight to competitive economics without concessionary capital. 👥 Advice for FOAK startups The panelists offered some very specific pieces of advice for startups going through FOAK: how to get creative with things like revenue sharing agreements or convertible notes, getting smart with project development early on (like with DeveloperU), being careful about using FOAK too liberally with certain investor groups, getting the right commercialization / FOAK talent in and around you early Huge thanks to the panelists and the team at Greentown Labs (Jill Kirkpatrick, Julia Travaglini, Aisling Carlson, etc you rocked it!!) for hosting this discussion on bridging the FOAK gap. Also immensely enjoyed the rest of the agenda. Check out the full recap & videos here: https://lnkd.in/d9ApYe9Y #ClimateTech #FOAK #ClimateFinance #ProjectDevelopment #GreenTech #CleanEnergy

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I congratulate Aepnus Technology, a deep-tech startup, for raising $8M to commercialize its National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research work to develop an electrochemical platform to improve circularity and reduce emissions in battery supply chain chemicals, enabling GHG emissions reduction by an expected 3 gigatons by 2050. I congratulate Rhonda Shrader, Executive Director of UC Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship & NSF I-Corps Bay Area. She is an inspiring instructor; I am so fortunate to be in her class during the Summer 24 #Icorps Cohort. I am an Industry Mentor (IM) to Professor Ratnesh Kumar and Professor Shawana Tabassum, PhD who are inventors of plasmonic metamaterial-based gas sensing technology, based on NSF-funded research. It offers an order-of-magnitude lower-cost alternative to techniques like gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR). The technology helps with environmental compliance for GHG emissions in agriculture and manufacturing, Condition Monitoring of gases produced during process control in manufacturing plants, and monitoring of gases in Transformers (HW used in utilities - not the ones for implementing attention 😀). If you're interested in turning your NSF-funded research into a real-world product or service, consider the #Icorps program. It provides intense customer discovery training, where you'll interview 100+ potential customers in just seven weeks. This might sound grueling, but it's an invaluable experience. Remember, in startups, the founder is often the first salesperson. Understanding your customers' needs early on is crucial for success.

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Check out my recent post on why President Trump is the forcing function for us to solve the “Missing Middle” and catch the industrial Tsunami of onshoring coming to the US!

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Climate tech startup Cloover raises $114M in seed funding “By streamlining the sales process for installers, managing payment flows and financing, procuring necessary materials, and overseeing energy production and consumption for individuals, Cloover connects the dots and leverages synergies across the entire value chain,” states Jodok Betschart, Co-Founder & -CEO of Cloover. #ClimateTech #RenewableEnergy #LowercarbonCapital #GreenFinancing #SustainableTech #CleanEnergySolutions #EuropeanStartups #TechInnovation #RenewablesInstallations #GreenInvestments #EnergyEfficiency #SolarEnergy #EnergyStorage #HeatPumps #GreenEnergyCredits #SeedFunding #StartupExpansion #SustainableFinance #EnergyTech #EcoFriendlyTech #BusinessNews #Keralanews #Kerala #BusinessReviewLive #BRL #Keralabusiness

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HUGE thanks to everyone who came to Riffle Ventures and LabStart's #climateweekNYC event yesterday on how to close the "Zero to One" gap in #climatetech. We often say "Now all we have to do is deploy" or "We have all the solutions we need now we just need to scale them". But keep in mind that to roughly 40% of the technologies needed to hit 2050 net-zero goals are still not in the market, and these numbers don't reflect what's needed to enable climate adaptation and resilience either. Perhaps most importantly, of the solutions that are in the market, are they reaching those in most need, and are they being built and distributed equitably? Point being, the Zero to One phase matters. More early-stage entrepreneurship and co-creation is needed than we often think, and we can't solely focus on scale and deployment if we haven't even built much of what we need still. The unique mix of funding, technical inputs and infrastructure, talent, as well as longer timelines for testing and piloting make a lot of our highest impact climate solutions quite distinct from other technology verticals. On top of this, we face humungous equity and inclusion gaps throughout the tech and startup community writ large. Getting the Zero to One phase right gives us a chance to expedite the pathways into the market for climate technologies while also making sure these solutions are created and distributed equitably. We were extremely fortunate to be joined by leaders in this field - Halcyon, Autodesk Foundation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, ClimateWorks Foundation, CATAL1.5°T LATAM, Stepchange, Salesforce, King Philanthropies, Enduring Planet, Fractal Climate and many others! Feeling very, very grateful to have such wonderful colleagues like Suma Reddy Ashdeep S. Cyntia Abarca Nigel Keen and Alhan Fakhr alongside amazing partners and leaders like Deepa Lounsbury Megan Holcomb Troy Daley John Meissner Felipe Gonzalez Rosas Cristian Dávila Rafael Lorenzo Piñón Andrew Don Mitch Gainer Saleem Chapman Fred Tan Daniel J. Barker Emmanuelle Palikuca Shereen D'Souza Anay Shah Sara Bender, Ph.D. Adria Wilson, Ph.D. Shaina Horowitz Esther Nai Midori Takasaki Dimitry Gershenson Jennifer Wagner John Alexander, CEPA®, CSRIC® and many more (apologies for the Linkedin mention limitation)!

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🔦 Spotlight on Emerging Investment Trends: Energy Transition, Robotics, and Early-Stage Unicorn Sourcing 💡 At PaperJet Ventures, we’re always looking beyond the horizon for where technology and capital are converging to create transformative opportunities. In my latest Substack post, I dive into three major themes that are shaping our investment strategy: 1️⃣ Energy Transition & Data Centers: With the rising demand for AI infrastructure, energy consumption is set to skyrocket. We’re looking at novel material technologies that can make data centers scalable and sustainable. 🌍⚡ 2️⃣ Robotics Revolution: The race to build the next-gen robotics market is heating up, but it’s not just about software. Tackling hardware challenges will be key to unlocking the potential of humanoid robotics and solving global labor shortages. 🤖✨ 3️⃣ Sourcing Early-Stage Unicorns: With over 800 unicorns emerging in recent years, early-stage investment remains highly fragmented. That’s where we see an opportunity to identify and back outlier founders before they gain broader attention. 🚀🔍 Curious about our approach or want to share your thoughts? Check out the full post below and let’s connect on these emerging themes!👇 https://lnkd.in/gU9pfgUk #DeepTech #AI #VentureCapital #Investing #Robotics #EnergyTech #TechTrends

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👀 Looking at our recent investments at Draper Associates, here’s what standout founders nailed, making our decision to invest much easier (and faster): 💥 Visionary Tech with a Bold Vision – These founders are not here for incremental wins; they’re reimagining what’s possible in across tech - biotech, robotics, aerospace, and beyond. Their vision is big and audacious, tackling complex problems that demand breakthrough solutions, others have not been willing to try. 👊 Clear Passion & Purpose – The drive in these founders is undeniable. They’re committed to their mission with a depth of purpose that shapes every choice. One founder, for example, took two years completely off to learn and meet everyone in longevity biotech. This level of grit and dedication is rare but essential for the most impactful founders. 🌟 Assembling All-Star Teams – They bring together top-tier talent from diverse disciplines: experienced business leaders with successful exits or industry experience at top companies, technical co-founders with deep expertise, often PhDs or industry pioneers, and even published authors. It’s a complementary team, unified by a shared vision. They make the: "Why this team?" obvious - at a glance. 💻 Data-Driven to the Core – These founders present data insights that show why their approach is unique, especially against a competitive field of companies. This data is delivered with clarity and they make the complex simple. Many are published in top journals, adding depth and credibility to their approach, and reinforcing that they know their tech inside out. ⚡️ Memorable, Clear Vision – They don’t just pitch; they make the future feel tangible, with a vision that’s both compelling and concise. If I can relay their pitch in under 30 seconds to my team, they’ve killed it. 📣 Transparent & Proactive Communication – The best founders don’t wait for questions. They come prepared, often with a comprehensive FAQ doc, give timely updates to our questions, and are candid about challenges. This level of openness builds trust and strengthens our partnership. 💸 Milestone-Driven Funding Strategy – Each funding stage aligns clearly with already achieved or upcoming achievable milestones. They’ve mapped out a roadmap that minimizes risk at every step, giving us confidence in their journey. 💰 Revenue Milestones Along the Way – Even if it'll take a decade to hit revenue on their big vision, these founders find revenue generation stops along the way to profitability. They share a trajectory that connects early wins to revenue, showing how every step is a building block toward their bigger vision. Overall, the best founders are incredibly thoughtful, prepared, and fantastic verbal / written communicators. #founders #startups #fundraising #VC

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⚡ 🔌 Sense is helping to decarbonize the world through better grid analytics as we march through a critical intermediary step: electrification 🔌⚡ It's W2 / Q3 / 2024 & this week in our MGMT Boston startup series we’ve got Sense, a growth stage startup bringing better intelligence to the edge of our electrical grid. Founder and CEO Mike Phillips has built software companies through many cycles, including the dot com era. In the early days of AI and machine learning he founded a company called Speechworks, licensing speech recognition technology from MIT. When Mike & his early team were ready to build something new at the intersection of machine learning, data and consumer in climate tech, they had a battle tested plan. Electrification helps decarbonization because we can then use software to more intelligently identify areas of efficiency. As we onboard more electric vehicles, integrate more heat pumps, and stop burning stuff in our home and cars we need to see what is where. When you get a bill from your energy provider and it shows that energy usage bar chart relative to your neighbors, it’s not very actionable. Did you know the transformer at the end of your street can only support charging 3 EVs at any given time? Our electrical grid is the largest machine in the world, based on 100-year-old technology. It’s amazing it even works because it’s practically devoid of real time insights. When Mr. & Mrs. Smith move in next door with the 4th EV in the neighborhood and the power goes out, do you know how the utility knows? When you call them! Estimates from Bloomberg, McKinsey & others state that $21T of investment is needed to upgrade our electrical grid in order to hit net zero emissions with capacity also needing to double by 2050. In 2024 they are focused on meter rollouts to utilities across the U.S., partnering with major utilities on the east coast to bring Sense’s technology and insights to over 3M consumers, with more on the horizon. Sense is proud to be a part of Boston’s growing climate community seeing big potential throughout the Boston ecosystem, aspiring to be one of the companies leading the way in the years ahead. Sense is backed by Blue Earth Capital AG, Bolt, TELUS Global Ventures (TGV), MCJ Collective, Schneider Electric, Energy Impact Partners, Prelude Ventures, and iRobot. Operators to Know (Locally): -Karen Rubin, COO -Colin Gibbs, VP Energy Services -George Zavaliagkos, VP Technology -Sam Alden, Director of FP&A -Maggie Fitzgerald, VP Business Operations -Vikas Garg, Senior Electrical Design Engineer -Joel Margolese, Director Software Engineering -Stephon McCoy, Head of Strategic Integrations, North America -Aisha Strauss, Director of Customer Success -John A. Watlington, Director of Hardware If you're interested in learning more, the full post is linked in the comments! And sign up for the newsletter to see who we bring you next week, will ya?? #bostontech #startups #AI

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If you are a founder building in climate and/or deep tech - check out this webinar tomorrow hosted by Newlab. A killer panel diving into Techno-Economic Analyses (TEA) and Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) Mastering TEA and LCA for Deep Tech Success - August 20 at 2:30pm ET - Understand how these tools drive the economic viability and environmental sustainability of your venture Link to register below!

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🌍 Exciting news! Apparel Impact Institute (Aii) has just announced the newest round of Climate Solutions Portfolio (CSP) grants, part of the $250 million Fashion Climate Fund aimed at unlocking $2 billion in blended capital for industry-wide decarbonization. These grants provide essential funding and support for scalable, science-based solutions that help the fashion industry reduce its environmental impact.🌱 This round of grantees – Pozzi, Grant Thornton, and Amphico – are tackling unique supply chain challenges with innovative technologies, offering measurable greenhouse gas reductions. Collectively, these projects have the potential to save over 24,000 tCO2e within their first year of implementation! 💡 Highlights include: * Pozzi's advanced heat recovery system for the textile wet processing sector * Grant Thornton's innovative approach to energy conservation in the lubricant industry * Amphico's cutting-edge color-mixing technology for textiles, creating vibrant fabrics with reduced environmental impact A huge congratulations to these trailblazers for their commitment to a sustainable future. Learn more about their projects and how Aii is driving decarbonization efforts across the industry #Sustainability #ClimateAction #Decarbonization #FashionIndustry #ApparelImpactInstitute #InnovationForImpact #CSPGrantees #SustainableFashion #Decarbonization

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Red alert - we're looking for an all-around-badass COO to help build an early stage company that's at the intersection of climate and space tech. You'd be joining on the ground floor, pretty damn close to the launchpad. Can't say a whole bunch about our latest investment yet, but it involves space-based sensors and some of the most cutting edge satellites ever designed, led by a team that have invented interplanetary tech and literally set records that are out of this world. The technical talent density here is insane. Now, they're bringing their brainpower to fight climate change, and I couldn't be more thrilled. The field of earth observation has so many implications for earth science - many of which also translate into serious $$$$ from mining, insurance, agriculture, carbon removal, methane abatement, defense, etc. We're looking for someone who's been compared to SpaceX's Gwynne Shotwell more than once, navigated dual use business models (particularly climate + defense customer bases), and speaks in enterprise go-to-market metrics in their sleep. We're looking for you. Shoot me a note or referral at [email protected] if interested or please tag folks in the thread. #startups #tech #entrepreneurship #climate #climatetech #space #spacetech #defense #defensetech #satellites #earthobservation

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Some VC investors believe that brick and mortar - referring to a physical presence of some kind - should be avoided at all costs. Yet, the track record of clinic and hybrid care businesses in health care indicates otherwise. ==> One Medical (sold for $3.9 billion to Amazon), Oak Street (bought by CVS for $10.6 billion), Lifestance (IPO at $7.5 billion market cap), and PE-backed Premise Health (acquired by OMERS Private Equity for $1.1 billion) If a clinic is indicated as the optimal way to deliver care for that patient population, there are creative ways to build and operate them. Full article below with advice and strategies on how to build and operate hybrid clinics from my teammate Anarghya Vardhana from Maveron, Amir Dan Rubin from OneMedical Group, Steven Eidelman from Modern Animal and more!

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Exciting times ahead as Nika Eco pioneers climate data solutions with AI! By leveraging advanced technology. Nika Eco is transforming how we understand and address climate challenges through advanced carbon modeling. Their AI-driven platform provides actionable insights, helping businesses and governments make data-informed decisions to combat climate change effectively. https://lnkd.in/gW_69V3Z

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And my second investment at defy is in 🐶 zeroETL puppies 🐶... I mean PuppyGraph, which is all the beauty of a graph database, none of the data migration or continuous upkeep of a graph database. Sounds like magic? So are puppies 🐶 . Puppygraph is NOT a graph or a database. It is graph analytics engine that answers graph questions on your existing data warehouses, whether that is a Databricks datalake, Google BigQuery or postgres. Compared to SQL, it's faster, handles way more complexity, scales and has almost no upkeep. How did I get to conviction? 1. Tailwinds - 🌊 Lakehouses 🌊 have helped enterprises put all their data in one place, enabling Puppygraph to unlock insights previously unavailable. - 📚 LLMs! 📚AI and RAG cannot easily traverse fragmented data. Puppygraph's Graph RAG unlocks insights with their Knowledge Graph and spoonfeeds to the LLMs. 2. 👯 Team 👯 We have graph experts from Google, LinkedIn, Databricks, Tigergraph, and Instacart who are uniquely able to build this solution. 3. 💸 Customers 💸 . My alma mater Coinbase is a proud user. The feedback from my former colleagues was off the charts! A blockchain is very much a graph database and Puppygraph tracks down fraudulent transactions that go through mixers and helps identify patterns. Huge congrats to Weimo Liu Danfeng Xu Lei Huang Zhenni Wu Gary Hagmueller, defy.vc is proud to be an investor!!

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One month left to apply!!!! Apply to NETI's Climate Tech Bootcamp Cohort 3.0, a pre-accelerator program powered by Riffle Ventures, Climate Tech Bootcamp, OHUB and Greater New Orleans, Inc. – GNO, Inc. part of H2TheFuture, a Build Back Better Regional Challenge of The Economic Development Administration. This bootcamp is a 10-week pre-accelerator program for climate tech and new energy entrepreneurs in the United States that have an interest in building in or expanding to South Louisiana. ‍ Five (5) founders from the program will pitch for a $100,000 (US) investment on the terms of their current round. Application is in the comments and here's a quick overview as well: - 📆 When: September 3 - October 31, 2024 - ⏰ Deadline to Apply: August 27, 2024 - 💻 Location: Virtual - 🆓 Cost: Free. The $5,000 per person fee is waived thanks to GNO, Inc. and The Economic Development Administration's Build Back Better Regional Challenge. - 💰 Funding: Up to $100,000 US (equity investment) in current round to the top startup selected at the end of the cohort. - 🈺 Cohort Size: 25-30 entrepreneurs - 🌍 Cohort Geography: United States - 📈 Stage: We welcome applicants from multiple stages, though having a minimum viable product is ideal.

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Wonderful article about Emily Knight and the whole The Engine Accelerator team on the amazing work their doing changing the world with #ToughTech!

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It was an honour to unveil Molten Ventures’ short film, 2054, at the London Stock Exchange this morning as Molten Ventures’ new CEO.   This film, created using 14 separate generative AI applications, formed the core of the theme for this year’s CEO summit: “what if you succeed?”. A question which we should ask ourselves every day – and urge every entrepreneur and investor to do the same.   By diving thirty years ahead into a fictional future, we can get a glimpse of what may be possible if the capital, support, expertise and energy is injected into businesses and ideas at the right time. Something that we’ve been doing at Molten Ventures for many years.   We have already built a portfolio of Europe’s most forward-thinking companies who have developed technology that changes lives, now.   You can find out more about the story behind the film, including films made by our portfolio companies here: https://lnkd.in/ezNbeEPu

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