Climate Tech Investor: Deep Tech — Derek Handley, Founder of Aera Ventures

Led by Founder Derek Handley, Aera Ventures invests at the frontier of deep technology and sustainability to accelerate the world to a better future. "Those who create breakthrough ideas the fastest will generate new markets, exponential financial returns and a better future for us all."

Below are two excerpts from the podcast.

"Everything I do now is related to some social or environmental issue. I had the chance to build an alliance of different CEOs around the world who were tackling the same question on different scales. I partnered with Richard Branson and was helping large-scale business leaders transitions with these issues. My wife and I then set up a small Charitable Trust. We didn't know what to call it, we end up calling an Aera. It means exactly what it sounds like; it's the Latin word for “era.” It's the root word for our time, our generation. The Foundation came first, and then we spun out different projects, and the venture fund is a project at the Foundation. It's a unique genesis story to build a venture capital fund from a charitable trust, but the mission was always to work on sustainability and climate."

"The space that I think is blue sky and most exciting is heavy industry. The problem is so big with cement, plastic, steel, chemicals, etc. We're looking for interesting companies in that space. Also, the intersection of climate and fintech is really interesting. I think “Okay, we have a banking system and a finance system that is trying to turn the ship to meet the climate issue.” I'm starting to dream that people might build entirely new banking institutions or financial institutions that are climate-focused and built for a sustainable world."

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