Invested In Climate

Going for gigatons with Clean Energy Venture's Temple Fennell, Ep #89

Jun 13, 2024

39:52

We know we need to be investing trillions of dollars annually into the climate transition. Venture capital is just a small slice of the pie, but there’s simply no time to slow down its contribution to advancing climate solutions.

In 2023, however, climate tech venture funding dropped 30% to $32 billion. Whether this was a temporary slowdown caused by high interest rates and the macro environment, or the new normal, will make a big difference.

Recently, I’ve been thrilled to start hearing about funds that are closing new and significantly bigger rounds.

One such firm is Clean Energy Ventures. They just raised their second fund, which is three times the size of their first, and I was pleased to get to hear the details from Clean Energy Ventures’ Co-Founder and Managing Partner Temple Fennel. Temple’s been investing in climate tech since 2017 and has held fast to focusing on companies that can reduce emissions by multiple gigatons. In today’s conversation, we hear how Temple got started in climate tech investing and what he seeks in an investment. We hear about some of his portfolio companies, the changes he’s seeing in climate investing and much more. Lots to learn in this one – enjoy.

In today’s episode, we cover:

[03:02] Temple’s path & how he decided to focus on climate investing
[7:54] Clean Energy Ventures’ investment thesis & what makes them unique
[11:38] Expectations, assumptions & surprises from the first fund
[14:25] Rebound Technologies, their business potential & climate mitigation opportunity
[17:40] Aqua Membranes & why Clean Energy Ventures invested
[19:51] Other examples of what Clean Energy Ventures is interested in
[23:03] The second fund & the focus this time around
[25:52] The Simple Emission Reduction Calculator: Emissions reduction & the causality for financial return
[27:33] The process of raising capital today
[30:42] The current state of the capital market for climate
[32:36] Change in SBTI rules around offsetting & talk on decarbonization mandates
[34:49] What needs to happen to get company leadership onboard for making near-term commitments to technologies that will drive their decarbonization
[36:11] How investors are acting differently & outlook
[37:45] Other interesting investment areas with opportunity