Übermorgen Ventures - The Climate Tech Evergreen Fund with Alex Langguth

Alexander Langguth is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Übermorgen Ventures, an early stage Zurich-based venture firm with early investments in climate innovators like Sunvigo, carbo culture and delicious data.

Alex has always shown a high level of transparency and collaboration with other Climate Tech investors. In this episode, I take you behind closed doors and give you maximum insights.

1. We discuss Ubermorgen's evergreen fund model and why it actually helps to raise 1st-time funds.
2. We hear Alex share how difficult it was to raise a first fund and how they run investment decisions
3. And Alex and I rip on contrarian views, on what most people get wrong about being a fund manager and advice for job seekers and entrepreneurs

Listen and Learn

• The reasons why Ubermorgen picked an evergreen fund model
• The difficulty to sell this new model to LPs initially
• Alex’s expected ratio of institutional funds, evergreen funds, solo GPs in Europe in 10 years 
• Alex most painful moment raising their 1st fund 
• Whether LPs cared more about impact of financial returns 
• Why having contrarian views and avoiding confirmation bias is so important in VC
• The area where Alex has completely changed his views over the last 2 years
• What most people have wrong about being a fund manager
• How Übermorgen handles investment decisions internally and votes on deals (with 1 to 10 scoring) 
• The best advice to share with entrepreneurs on HOW to engage with VCs to maximize success of their fundraising
• How to land your first job in Climate Tech

Show Links

• Ubermorgen Ventures' Website
• Alex's Linkedin
• The Sequoia evergeen fund and more about Sequoia’s open ended fund model 
• Climate Tech Slack communities: Voyagers and My Climate Journey
• The runing list of all Climate Tech VC funds (in Europe and worldwide)
• The Huge heat wave hitting India and Pakistan with 42C 
• The Wet build 35 phenomenon when it’s too hot for humans to survive
• Ubermorgen Newsletter
• Impact assessment framework by Full Frame Initiative
• Climate Fiction book recommendation: The Ministry for the Future

Carveouts

• Climate Fiction book recommendation: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. A fantastic Climate Fiction which gives a lot of clues as to what geoengineering solutions might be most helpful and they will play out. It’s like reading into the future of Climate.