Grant Gunnison

Great to see Google supporting innovation from Fervo Energy via an innovative clean energy purchase agreement with NV Energy. I expect to see an explosion of agreements like this as AI driven energy consumption skyrockets and companies struggle to find enough power (clean or not!). This intersection of AI, energy, grid resilience and clean power is creating huge opportunities for innovative startups to build global scale ups in thre coming years. And at Smart Society Ventures - we’re excited about the potential! https://lnkd.in/efdc3tth

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Yesterday, I spoke with a friend who’s doing everything right when it comes to climate action. He and his wife drive EVs, have rooftop solar, and completed a home energy audit. Yet, he’s frustrated. The next logical move - switching from natural gas to a heat pump - would increase his energy costs by 30%, even with rebates. It’s a tough reality: the system isn’t always set up to make the sustainable choice the rational one - especially if you're already on the leading edge. But here’s what stood out: He’s already a leader, and now he’s turning his frustration into action. He’s talking to his neighbors to make their neighborhood a "green space", and working with his schools and community centers to do audits and make upgrades that make economic sense. This reminded me that while individual actions matter, collective action and systemic change are what truly move the needle. I’ve written more about this conversation and the lessons it offers. If you’re navigating similar challenges, I’d love to hear your story. Check out the full post here: https://lnkd.in/eawyPdNd #ClimateAction #Sustainability #CleanEnergy

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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗘𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗦𝗽𝗹𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗕𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 When building a startup, one of the most crucial yet challenging decisions is how to divide equity among the founding team and advisory board. A well-structured equity split can set the foundation for trust, long-term commitment, and a clear understanding of each member’s value. It’s essential to have open conversations about roles, contributions, and expectations right from the start. This way, everyone feels fairly compensated and motivated to help the company grow. A balanced approach to equity helps avoid conflicts down the line, aligns incentives, and ensures that the advisory board members feel valued for their expertise and time. At the end of the day, equity is not just a financial agreement—it's about aligning everyone's vision and commitment to success. Huge thanks to @Peter walker the valuable insights on this topic!  

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A good case of glass half full or half empty. The $2tn investment is way short of what is needed to be net zero in coming decades. But, some of the categories like battery storage capacity or solar generation have been growing 100% or more annually for the last 10 year or so. Interesting short read. #Cleanteach #Climatecrisis #Energytransition https://lnkd.in/dAy9P3Jn

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Interesting point of view regarding PhDs.

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September is a crazy month for #climatetech #FOAK themed events. Some I'd like to shout out from the first half: ✅ A FOAK-themed dinner Tim Franklin-Hensler, Charlie Nelson, Dev Motiram, and I hosted, sponsored by Jordan Kellerman (Peachtree Group) and Robert Sarfatis (Polsinelli) during the inaugural #HoustonClimateWeek ✅ A FOAK panel at the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship's Energy Tech Venture Forum, also during HCW, moderated by Tim Franklin-Hensler with panelists Charlie Nelson, Laureen Meroueh, PhD, Mac Hatch, and Janice Tran. Topics included adapting rapidly to delays in timing, managing cost runovers, balancing the myriad of KPIs for FOAK, learning to be smarter about how to talk to customers, and how market uncertainty can dramatically affect FOAK projects ✅ A 4-hour "pilotathon" hosted by the Energy Tech Nexus, where different startups got to pitch their pilots. SUCH a good idea, Jason Ethier, Nada Ahmed, Juliana Garaizar, and the rest of the ETN team! ✅ A FOAK panel during Decarb Connect's TechInvest that I got to moderate with panelists Claude Vachet, Jeff Johnson, Francis O'Sullivan, and David Yeh. Topics included using corporate and DOE dollars in FOAK deals, encouraging communication between different investor classes, the 10,000 hours of experience needed to be a good developer, educating companies on project development, and the need for everyone across the climate universe to stretch their roles & take a bit more risk ✅ A generally FOAK-themed set of talks at Decarb TechInvest, expertly curated by Alex Cameron and her team, which included (among others): - a fascinating fireside chat with Rob Day and Matt Lucas moderated by Wim Reyntiens that touched on how critical it is to have accurate cost forecasting, how ROFRs can block additional access to capital, evaluating offtake risk beyond just the ideal, the folly of up rounds for the sake of up rounds, and why one shouldn't obsess over scale up factors and number of operating hours - a talk by Chris Creed that outlined the LPO's strategy around FOAK deployment loans - a FOAK success panel moderated by Kerri Fox that included Leah Ellis, Martin Keighley, and Shreya Dave, which talked about using a carbon price to incentivize corporate action, choosing the right cooperative FOAK partner, creating new offtake agreements in markets that haven't had traditional offtake (like cement<>concrete or CDR), and using job growth to incentivize growth vs. decarbonization. AND ⭐TOMORROW⭐ is the second annual Cleantech Day at Denver Startup Week hosted by Colorado Cleantech. I'm moderating a panel on FOAK successes in Colorado with Eric Davis, Johanna O., Carling Spelhaug, and Kimberly Purdy. Shoutout to Ken Carlson, Laura Hickernell, Joseph P., and Jack Fritzinger for their help & hard work. REGISTER BELOW!!

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Fundraising decks are important but only within the context of a well-orchestrated fundraising process. A deck itself is unlikely to directly lead to a term sheet. Rather, it is important to understand how you want to use the deck (or any collateral for that matter) as part of your fundraise process. For example: - Is it to secure the first meeting with a VC? A teaser deck is important. But so is the email snippet and warm referral! - Is it part of a deeper-dive session about your business? Excellent. Is it a deeper dive on product or GTM? And, is the next step a track to a partnership meeting? - Is it a diligence deck? Excellent. Is it more about showcasing the financial plan and key levers? ... what is the ONE thing you want this deck to help you achieve? More tips on fundraising your early-stage round here: https://lnkd.in/gvWYaCwk #startups #venture #fundraising

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Exciting News: Schematic is publicly available and we’ve raised $4.8M in seed funding! 🚀 I’m pumped to share that Schematic is now publicly available! We've also raised $4.8M in seed funding, led by MHS Capital with participation from NextView Ventures, Active Capital, Atlanta Ventures, and Ritual Capital—along with support from incredible founders of companies like CrowdStrike, LaunchDarkly, and Salesloft. A big thank you to our investors for believing in us, to our customers for guiding us, and to Benjamin Papillon, Jasdeep Garcha, Giovanni Hobbins, Vladyslav Len, Youssef Salah, Christopher Brady, Joseph Chrzan, Mohammed Almusaddar, and Markiian Simkiv for the opportunity to build this together. ➡️ Solving the last mile of pricing & packaging At every startup, one thing is certain: pricing and packaging will always change. Product and engineering teams shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time this happens. Most companies hard-code pricing and packaging into their applications, making it slow and painful to evolve as market demands shift. ➡️ What We’re Building We're building Schematic to transform pricing and packaging for B2B SaaS companies by getting product and engineering teams out of billing projects. With Schematic, B2B SaaS companies can change pricing & packaging without code changes or billing refactors. ➡️ How It Works With just a few lines of code, businesses can implement pricing and packaging into any application—end-to-end—from feature delivery through billing and customer experience. Quickly roll out new features and tie them to your pricing plans. Target specific plans to customers and adjust them without engineering support. Experiment, scale, and manage pricing & packaging operations: trials, plans, limits, entitlements, metering usage, handling exceptions, provisioning customers, & embedding front-end purchasing components —all without code changes. ➡️ Who we’re building for We’re building Schematic for B2B SaaS companies who want their pricing & packaging roadmaps to move in sync with their product roadmaps, without slowing down their engineering teams. Some key use cases our customers are already benefiting from: 🔹Outsourcing homegrown & hard-coded entitlement services. 🔹Programmatically managing feature access based on subscription plans. 🔹Metering usage and actually enforcing limits. 🔹Updating and managing plans, add-ons, bundling, and customer exceptions 🔹Delivering embeddable purchasing experiences (pricing tables, customer portals, upgrade/downgrade flows, etc). We’re still in the early innings, but the foundation is strong—we're already handling 500K entitlement flag evaluations every month. If you’re a founder or a product leader looking to avoid building what should be out-of-the-box (feature flags, entitlements, admin dashboards, customer portals), check out Schematic and let us know what you think.

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What if I offered your building $100,000 a year, free and clear, with zero upfront cost? Well this is ACTUALLY happening right now with a new program from utilities offering zero or low interest loans paired with high impact energy efficiency projects. How does this work, and how do you take advantage of it? Watch below.

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Today's Boring Biz: Pool Leak Detection Company - $2.3M Revenue - $610K Cashflow - South Carolina - Day 39 of "50 States In 50 Days" Note: We do not represent this deal, highlighting for informational purposes only for viewers What do they do? 1. Leak detection services 2. Electronic detection equipment 3. Pool inspections Investment Highlights 1. Strong market demand 2. Established reputation 3. Business systems in place Investment risks/concerns 1. What is the competition 2. Customer concentration 3. Length of contracts #SMB #ETA #finance #Cashflow #investing #search #searchfund #privateequity #microprivateequity #smallbusiness #venturecapital #vc #entrepreneur #business #businessowner #pool #leakdetection #southcarolina #servicecompany Disclaimer: Hypothetical and illustrative only. Please do your own research (DYOR) or work with tax and legal professionals before making a decision. This video are intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice, nor should be construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any security by SMB PE LLC or any third party

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Wondering about the Nebraska ecosystem resources. See the attached chart below…and more to come!

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Power Grid is a board game that is a great tool for learning more about energy, the grid, and the power of renewable energy. https://lnkd.in/gHvsSPiD #energy #powergrid #gridoptimization

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"There are a few big reasons that I think now is such a fertile time to build $100 billion+ Techno-Industrials: Tools. There are simply more tools at builders’ disposal – AI, traditional software, improving hardware, programmable biology, cheaper energy, robots, and more – that they can combine into vertically integrated companies. Cracks. The old system is showing cracks. The grid is struggling. Planes are falling apart. Carbon emissions have to go. Healthcare costs are through the roof. Metals discoveries are declining. Supply chains are breaking down. America’s industrial base has atrophied. The biggest systems in the world need to be rebuilt. Enormous Markets. Most of the largest companies by revenue are not tech companies, and most of the world’s GDP is outside of tech: in energy, healthcare, labor, real estate, and manufacturing. These are multi-trillion dollar markets. Pent-Up Opportunity. Entrepreneurs and investors have largely ignored these categories in favor of software, which means there are more opportunities left to build power law winners in them. There can only be one Power Law social network or search engine, but there can be a winning tech company in each sector and subsector of the physical economy. Examples. Companies like Anduril, Tesla, and SpaceX have shown founders that it’s possible to build enormous businesses by building hard things. " // YES

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I made some paper circuits about electricity and solar power. Words on page from Nicole Kelner, drawing inspo from Nicole Kelner (shared with permission). I think this could be a good activity for teachers to do with students to help them learn about energy - they could make paper circuits of renewable energy or other forms of energy. Made at MIT Museum. #papercircuits #climate #teaching #stem #climateeducation

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In 2011, Tracy Young co-founded PlanGrid, which made software for construction teams. After scaling the company to 450 people and raising $69 million, it was acquired by Autodesk in 2018 for $875 million. That’s a win, but Tracy and her partners didn’t go for the exit because they’d reached the peak of the mountain. They cut the deal because PlanGrid was behind, and they didn’t know how to catch up. “It was really challenging for us to go up market,” she told me in August when I interviewed her in her office. “We nailed SMB, we did a good job moving upstream towards mid-market, but we just really sucked at selling to the enterprise. And by the time we got to $80 million in ARR, it was the only route left.” Three years later, during the pandemic, Tracy and her husband, Ralph Gootee, co-founded TigerEye, a RevOps AI agent that lets analysts answer questions and allocate resources based on data that’s updated multiple times each hour. Last year, TigerEye closed a $30 million Series A. She describes it as “moneyball for business,” the tool she wished she’d had at PlanGrid when she was fighting entrenched competitors who were just better at enterprise sales. In part one of our interview, she explains why they started their new company up in stealth and how TigerEye reflects her vision of what enterprise software should accomplish. I was particularly interested in how she developed customer personas and messaging while keeping a low profile. “If anything, stealth gave us the ability to really go broad in the number of profiles,” she said. ”It gave us the chance to really test out messaging, so that was pretty cool.” She also shared what she’d learned as a CEO her second time around when it comes to building early teams and managing a hybrid workplace. Read the rest on Substack: https://lnkd.in/gn8FuPzf 🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gyyPBb93 🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gzPbpeMx Thanks very much for appearing on Fund/Build/Scale, Tracy!

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Batteries are critical to the energy transition but have experienced a tremendous bottleneck - financing! Unlike in solar, batteries are difficult to finance given variance of performance Learn more about we’re hunting for solutions to unlock the bottleneck in battery financing!

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Batteries are critical to the energy transition but have experienced a tremendous bottleneck - financing! Unlike in solar, batteries are difficult to finance given variance of performance Learn more about we’re hunting for solutions to unlock the bottleneck in battery financing!

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See what Influence Watch has to say about Americas Frontier Fund (AFF), the VC firm that backed the NM venture lab (Roadrunner), and you'll see why I immediately said I wouldn't have anything to do with it. It's a sophisticated example of political influence in NM's sovereign O&G fund, and provides some indication why NM has never emerged as a successful tech cluster, despite being one of the most advanced science clusters in the world, and having a fair number of smart, honest and successful entrepreneurs. When we were asked by the then governor's office of NM to provide feedback on their new state backed VC fund, I strongly advised removing the governor or any other politician as chair, but NM never did, so we didn't apply to manage funds for NM (I was founder/MP of our VC firm in AZ then). This is what happens to public VC funds when mixed with politics. So NM invests $100 million in the Roadrunner venture lab, AFF invests $10 million (founders Schmidt and Thiel), and then AFF or their founder's VC firms cherry pick anything that looks good emerging from the venture lab. The claim is to build companies in NM, but everyone should know that is usually determined by the A or B round investors, not the venture lab, which is why NM has exported over 100 tech ventures to CA since I've been following closely - 30 years. CA has been cherry picking NM ventures for decades. The state of NM has actually made it very difficult for entrepreneurs to remain in NM when they reach growth stage.