📊 15 years as a cleantech VC investor | $26M for automated carbon removal | $45M for industrial decarbonization
Your 3-minute summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.
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Good morning, folks.
In today’s 3-minute read, we’ll cover these juicy nuggets:
💸 15 Years Investing in Cleantech — Abe Yokell, Managing Partner at Congruent Ventures
🏭 $45M for MIT Spinout in Industrial Decarbonization — Dr. Shreya Dave, CEO of Via Separations
☁️ $26M for API to Automate Carbon Removal — Brennan Spellacy, CEO of Patch
📏 100 Rules — A Personal Philosophy
🧘 “Let go, or be dragged.” — Zen Proverb
Enjoy.
Chris
3 podcasts to inspire your commute.
Check out below three of our latest climate CEO and investor podcasts at Entrepreneurs for Impact.
In these interviews, I cover questions such as:
How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way?
Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like?
If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
Plus, we’re not super serious about it. Just a couple of folks talking shop.
☁️ Andreessen Horowitz loves climate solutions.
Led by CEO and Co-founder Brennan Spellacy, Patch is an API-based solution enabling customers to embed carbon footprint estimation and removal directly into their digital products and experiences.
Backed by Andreessen Horowitz and other VC investors, Patch collaborates with a wide range of carbon removal project types, from traditional nature-based projects 一 such as forestry, soil, and kelp 一 to leading-edge carbon removal technologies 一 such as biochar, bio-oil, and mineralization.
Prior to Patch, Brennan was trained as a chemical engineer and worked as a web developer and product manager for groups such as Sonder, Shopify, and McGill University.
🏭 MIT PhD turned climate tech CEO.
Led by CEO and Co-founder Dr. Shreya Dave, Via Separations is an MIT spinout enabling industrial process efficiency with novel chemistries that allow manufacturing facilities to slash energy consumption while making more products.
Targeting the 12% of US energy consumption that is wasted each year separating chemical compounds with heat, Via Separations reduces the load of the process by 90%, electrifies the most energy-intensive step in chemical production, and generates additional revenue for the customer. Today, Via is deploying its technology in pilot trials at pulp and paper facilities to eliminate 500 million metric tons of CO2 by 2050.
Via's investors and partners include Prime Impact Fund, Safar Partners, The Engine, Embark Ventures, ARPA-E, the National Science Foundation, and Greentown Labs.
💸 VC investor in 36+ positive-impact companies.
Co-led by Cofounder and Managing Partner Abe Yokell, Congruent Ventures is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco. They focus on sustainability challenges and investing early across hardware, software, enterprise, consumer, deep technology, fin-tech, and business model innovation, with 36+ positive-impact investments to date.
Abe oversees Congruent’s investments in AMP Robotics, Blueprint Power, OptimoRoute, For Days, Leap, Omnidian, Amply Power, Raptor Maps, Span.IO, Vector, and Phase Genomics.
He has over 15 years of investment experience, having invested across sectors and business models, and was responsible for opening RockPort Capital’s West Coast office in 2007.
Abe graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Economics, with minors in Chemistry and Biology.
📏 100 Rules — Personal Philosophy.
I’ve fallen in love with a new company called Trends.vc.
You can see why.
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But its founder is equally interesting — Dru Riley. Backstory below.
In 2017, I quit my job as a big-data engineer to go on mini-retirement.
The next 3 years were spent doing Jiu Jitsu, reading and traveling.
By 2020, it was time to go back to work or build something.
Trends.vc came after…
A failed app
A semi-successful book
Two data as a service companies
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He also created 100 rules to live by.
I think you’ll like it.
Snippets below.
“Focus on what you control.” — It’s unhelpful to dwell on things outside of your control.
“Perfect is a myth. Make a choice.” — Start and iterate.
“Successful people say no to almost everything.” — Focus.
“Don’t read/watch the news. Skewed incentives.” — The news is a war on our attention. We are frightened into coming back to find out what else to be afraid of. This leads to availability bias and pessimism. Some of us are more afraid to fly than drive. Counteract the news with positive propaganda.
“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” — Hard decisions are often the most important. Ben Horowitz tells us to run towards the fear.
“IDK = No” — If you’re uncertain, the answer should probably be no. This comes from Derek Sivers who wrote No “yes.” Either “HELL YEAH!” or “no.”
“Use simple language. Few syllables. Short sentences. Short paragraphs.” — Simplicity is hard to achieve. Work hard so your audience doesn’t have to.
“It’s easier to resist in the beginning than the end.” — Mistakes become harder to correct the longer they linger. Sunk costs play tricks on us. Suck it up and rip the bandaid off now. Toxic relationships, bad hires and tough conversations. It’s immediate pain versus chronic pain.
Thanks, Dru.
That’s all, y’all.
Make it a great week, because it’s usually a choice.
— Chris
🧘 P.S. “Let go, or be dragged.” — Zen Proverb
What are you clinging to, but know you should let go?
My list is long.
But it’s hard to pry my own fingers off the grip. 😑
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Dr. Chris Wedding
Founder and Chief Catalyst, Entrepreneurs for Impact
The Only Private Executive Mastermind Community for CEOs, Founders, and Investors Fighting Climate Change
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