Reversing age, Deep tech funding, Tai chi research
Get Chris Sacca to review your pitch deck. Shortcut diligence with this new model. Change your expectations to change your reality. (vol 142)
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Today’s topics.
💵 Deep Checks — New portal for funding hard tech
💨 Do this to shortcut diligence and deploy capital faster
🧘🏽♂️ Tai chi is better than aerobic exercise [research]
👵🏽 Our environment can make us old, or young again [research]
P.S. If you’re a growth-stage climate tech CEO who wants to grow faster via a private CEO community of vetted peers representing over $15B of value, apply by Friday, March 8 via early action to be an EFI Climate Fellow.
1.
💵 Deep Checks — New portal for funding hard tech in climate
Would you like Chris Sacca to see your pitch deck?
This might be the best way to get his attention if you are…
Looking for checks between $100k and $5M
Early stage with valuations below $15M
Working on deep tech climate solutions
Submit your deck here in one minute.
Thanks to Rayyan Islam, GP at 8090 Industries, for bringing this to my attention.
2.
💨 Do this to shortcut diligence and deploy capital faster
Here’s the headline that triggered this post:
What’s happening?
“HSBC will look to provide financing to companies cherry-picked by the U.S. technology giant to join its Google Cloud Ready-Sustainability programme.”
Takeaways:
This is a model growing in popularity where a big investor (HSBC) uses another trusted entity (Google) to shortcut their due diligence process and scale capital deployment.
Similarly, Collab Fund’s “Shared Future” program invests $100k in up to 100 climate-focused startups (annually) that have participated in leading accelerator and fellowship programs such as Activate Fellows, Y Combinator, and AirMiners. My friends at Gigascale Capital are also making similar programmatic IFTT investments via Activate.
3.
🧘🏽♂️ Tai chi is better than aerobic exercise [research]
This “slow motion” martial art is not limited to elderly practitioners in Chinese parks.
And thank goodness for that.
I remember practicing it alone in the evenings in Japan where I was just one of four native English speakers among 100,000 others. 😇
New research shows that:
“Tai chi is better than more vigorous aerobic exercises for lowering blood pressure in people with prehypertension.”
And other research shows that tai chi is more effective than brisk walking:
“at lowering blood pressure, fasting blood sugar levels, and perceived stress in people who have hypertension.”
How does it help?
“It elicits a response from the parasympathetic nervous system — the network of nerves that relaxes your body after periods of stress or danger.”
Read more from NPR (of course).
4.
👵🏽 Our environment can make us old, or young again [research]
In 1979, Harvard psychology professor Dr. Ellen Langer did something previously unimagined.
She “sent" eight men in their 70’s “back to the year 1959” to see what effect it had on their health.
They stepped out of a van in front of a converted monastery in New Hampshire.
They shuffled forward, a few of them arthritically stooped, a couple with canes.
Then they passed through the door and entered a time warp.
Perry Como crooned on a vintage radio. Ed Sullivan welcomed guests on a black-and-white TV.
Everything inside — including the books on the shelves and the magazines lying around — were designed to conjure 1959.
Nothing — no mirrors, no modern-day clothing, no photos except portraits of their much younger selves — spoiled the illusion.
What were the results?
Improvements in physical strength, manual dexterity, gait, posture, perception, memory, cognition, taste sensitivity, hearing, and vision
Why?
“Your own expectations, and the expectations of others, are powerful.
And expectations of the declining cognitive and physical abilities that come with age are pervasive.”
If you liked this, then you might like her new book: The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health
And what a genius reframing of that word: Not chronic pain, but chronic health.
📅 Apply to be an EFI Climate Fellow.
If you’re a growth-stage CEO in climate tech, sustainability, or renewable energy, and if Our Manifesto below at EFI (Entrepreneurs for Impact) sounds like you, then apply to be an EFI Climate Fellow via early action by Friday, March 8.
—
For some people, their work is their mission. It’s not a job or a career.
At EFI, our Climate Fellows simultaneously pursue audacious climate goals and profits.
Big problems = big opportunities, not sacrifice.
People tell them the odds are stacked against them. In response, they say, “Cool. What’s on my calendar today?” They know there are outsized benefits in doing hard things.
They’ve won Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year award, raised $100M on “science projects”, and sold ventures to Fortune 500 companies.
They’ve read thousands of pages of history during sabbaticals after selling companies, learned sales skills as street musicians, and conducted research in Central America’s rainforests.
And collectively, they’re building billions of dollars of value for climate solutions, rallying thousands of women in climate tech, and targeting the removal of gigatons of GHGs from the atmosphere.
They’re choosing optimism over pessimism, innovation over the status quo, and solutions over problems. They know that the best way to predict the future is to create it.
In this community, we’re building our brain trust, our personal advisory board, and our tribe so we can do what seems impossible: Tackle climate change through entrepreneurship.
That’s all, y’all.
Make it a great week because it’s usually a choice.
~ Chris
Founder @ Entrepreneurs for Impact
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(As these photos show, I’m an actual human writing this newsletter. Not AI. 🤖)
