$500M for New Climate Tech Investments in the $326T Real Estate — Greg Smithies, Partner at Fifth Wall

PODCAST GUEST BIO:

Fifth Wall is a $3B VC fund with a new $500M climate tech fund. Their focus is the built environment. Strategic investors include over 90 of the biggest corporate players in real estate, such as Hines, Prologis, and CBRE.

Greg Smithies is a Partner at Fifth Wall, where he co-leads the Climate Technology Investment team. Previously, Greg was a Partner at BMW i Ventures where he led the Sustainability investing practice. He also led Finance & Operations for both The Boring Company and Neuralink simultaneously. He started his investment career at Battery Ventures where he covered early-stage enterprise technology startups, as well as industrial technology buyouts.

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QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED:

Business

• What is your investment focus — e.g., sector, stage, geography, check size? What makes you unique versus the competition?
• Why is now the right time to be investing in climate-focused prop tech?
• Who are your biggest investors in the fund, and why?
• What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making?

Personal

• 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?
• What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools?

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PODCAST HOST:

Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.

Our three offerings include:

1. Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.
2. Online course on "Funding Your Climate Tech Startup" — Two-week boot camp offering 500+ climate investor list (with emails), a 5-step process for raising capital, the top 10 startup funding mistakes, and much more.
3. Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.

Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.