Climate CEOs (formerly Entrepreneurs for Impact): Scaling Climate Tech Startups

In this episode, I'm trying a new format, something less formal. More like a conversation with you. And much shorter than usual. Let me know if you like it. https://twitter.com/DrChrisWedding https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherwedding/ In this show, I cover two topics: (1) Highlights from my newsletter 🌤️ 56 early-stage climate startups to Google (Diamond List) 🏆 62 world-changing companies tackling the climate crisis (Fast Company) 🏀 Can you jump 44 inches into the air and dunk a basketball? (Two books to help you play to your strengths) READ MORE: https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com/p/-118-climate-tech-startups-to-watch?s=w (2) My new live course on climate tech funding June 1 to 14 1-2 live class sessions per week 1-2 optional live Q&A sessions per week Enrollment capped at 25 students 500+ climate investor list (with emails) 5-step process for raising capital 4 tools for assessing your competitive edge 9-step method for improving your 1-page business plan 10 top startup funding mistakes to avoid Network of peers to support you ENROLL HERE: https://maven.com/entrepreneurs-for-impact/fund-your-climate-tech-startup -- 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: 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. 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. The next live, online course is June 1 to 14. 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.

PODCAST GUEST BIOS: Shopify is a leading global e-commerce platform where "millions of the world's most successful brands sell, ship, and process payments anywhere." Nearly 600M shoppers made a purchase from a Shopify merchant in 2021, and around $496B has been sold on Shopify by merchants to date. Stacy Kauk is the Head of Sustainability and formerly Head of Ozone Protection and Head of Chemicals Management at Environment and Climate Change Canada.  She plays leadership roles in the $32M they've invested to support carbon-negative companies through their Sustainability Fund, and the new $925M commitment from Shopify, Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, and McKinsey Sustainability to do the same over ten years in the Frontier Fund. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition? What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned about funding your growth with outside investors? 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? What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- 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: 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. 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. The next live, online course is June 1 to 14. It's capped at only 25 students. 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.

PODCAST GUEST BIOS: Sustain.Life is a software solution that futureproofs mid-cap businesses tackling climate change. This includes the following benefits: (1) measure, track, and manage carbon emissions, (2) identify areas to make operational changes that reduce emissions, and offset the rest, and (3) leveraging tools and reports to engage suppliers, employees, customers, and other key stakeholders. Mike Hanrahan is the Co-founder, Interim CEO, and Board Member. He is also the CEO of 4Sided, a firm that builds SaaS companies; former Co-founder of Jet.com; and former CEO of Intelligent Retail Lab at Walmart. Alyssa (Zucker) Rade is the Chief Sustainability Officer. She was formerly Director of Sustainability for Vornado Realty Trust and Environmental Designer at Atelier Ten. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition? What is one mistake that you see many CEOs making? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned about funding your growth with outside investors? 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? What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- 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: 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. 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. The next live, online course is June 1 to 14. It's capped at only 25 students. 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.

PODCAST GUEST BIO: Co-led by Cofounder and CEO Moji Karimi, Cemvita Factory is reimagining heavy industries for the net-zero economy via a portfolio of nature-inspired microbial solutions for the oil and gas and mining. Their work focuses on carbon-negative biomanufacturing, biomining, and subsurface biomanufacturing. Moji is a carbon-negative entrepreneur and a technology futurist. His mission is to create a sustainable future where humans have applied technology to balance the rate of climate change. A future where humans live in harmony with nature. As an operator, he has a track record of taking a range of multidisciplinary ideas to market. He started the company with his sister, Dr. Tara Kojimi, who has devoted her academic and professional careers to studying biological systems and applying natural principles in the service of creating biologically-inspired technology. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition? How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way? Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like? 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? What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- 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: 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. 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. The next live, online course is June 1 to 14. It's capped at only 25 students. 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.

PODCAST GUEST BIO: Co-led by Cofounder and CEO Dr. Anastasia Volkova, Regrow is the first digital platform to unlock the power and profitability of resilient agriculture through a single, measurable, and verifiable system. Regrow combines best-in-class agronomy (from FluroSat, started by Anastasia) with soil and carbon modeling (from Dagan, acquired by FluroSat) to deliver customized, site-specific and scalable solutions to businesses across the supply chain. Anastasia's passion is Earth observation, automation, and efficiency. With three degrees and a doctoral thesis on autonomous navigation systems, she has experience in project management, transportation, and IT, including leading a 370-person team for UEFA, workshopping with Airbus, managing software development teams for American/European companies, starting a web development company, and running a successful event management startup. Her thesis "Feature-based Visual Navigation in GPS-denied environment" is the basis for Regrow's software for the processing of remotely sensed images (including Machine Learning), assignment of semantic labels on visual features, and multi-sensor/ multi-temporal data fusion for localization purposes. She is also a member of the Forbes Technology Council and Board Director for the Aurora Space Startup Cluster, an Australian initiative to promote the aerospace industry with 65 member companies across the entire supply chain. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition? How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way? Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like? 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? What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- PODCAST HOST: Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $5B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself. Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

PODCAST GUEST BIO: Co-led by Cofounder and CEO Sandeep Ahuja, cove.tool is an end-to-end automated green building performance software suite. It produces beautiful analysis graphics for energy, daylight, carbon, HVAC design, and more. Using machine learning, it considers thousands of options in order to select the lowest cost and highest performance material components for new construction and renovations.  cove.tool has raised over $36M of venture capital funding, including investors such as FootPrint Coalition (Robert Downey, Jr.'s fund), Third Sphere, URBAN-X, and Mucker Capital. Sandeep is also the founder of a successful sustainability consulting firm Pattern r+d. She has presented at the UN environment assembly, with 1,500 global delegates, on the impact of building on climate change, showcased at the Tedx Atlanta, SXSW, won the Forbes 30 under 30, and Atlanta Startup Battle.  Multiple publications have written about Sandeep's impact in the AEC industry including Architect magazine, Tech Crunch, Site Selection, and ArchDaily. With her desire to bring automation into the AEC world, she is pioneering the integration of building performance into the design and construction process by developing and using intelligent technology and software. Sandeep has presented at multiple architectural and engineering conferences including AIA, ACUI, ASHRAE, Facades+, Tech+, Build Tech, DBL. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition? How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way? Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like? 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? What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- PODCAST HOST: Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $5B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself. Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

PODCAST GUEST BIO: Co-led by COO and Cofounder Roshan Vani, Nexus PMG is a low-carbon, bio-based infrastructure development expert focused on project management, drone monitoring, 3D laser scanning, financial modeling, site selection, fuel supply, offtakes, permitting, FEED studies, EPC contracts, and project execution. Customers include some of the biggest names in infrastructure and finance, such as Apollo, Riverstone, Cargill, Skanska, Ultra Capital, Ember Infrastructure, and QIC. Roshan is a solutions-focused executive and advisor with more than 15 years of success across the construction industry. His broad areas of expertise include leadership, team building, risk analysis, business development, cash-flow forecasting, process improvement, client relations, and strategy.  In addition to prior roles at Bechtel Power Corporation and Fluor, he is the Founder of Cloud EPC, a cloud-based enterprise project management and project controls system for the engineering, procurement, and construction industries. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition? How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way? Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like? 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? What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- PODCAST HOST: Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself. Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

PODCAST GUEST BIO: Led by CEO and Co-founder Brennan Spellacy, Patch is an API-based solution enabling customers to embed carbon footprint estimation and removal directly into their digital products and experiences.  Backed by Andreessen Horowitz and other VC investors, Patch collaborates with a wide range of carbon removal project types, from traditional nature-based projects 一 such as forestry, soil, and kelp 一 to leading-edge carbon removal technologies 一 such as biochar, bio-oil, and mineralization. Prior to Patch, Brendan was trained as a chemical engineer and worked as a web developer and product manager for groups such as Sonder, Shopify, and McGill University. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition? How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way? Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like? 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? What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- PODCAST HOST: Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself. Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

PODCAST GUEST BIO: Led by CEO and Co-founder Dr. Shreya Dave, Via Separations is an MIT spinout enabling industrial process efficiency with novel chemistries that allow manufacturing facilities to slash energy consumption while making more product.  Targeting the 12% of US energy consumption that is wasted each year separating chemical compounds with heat, Via Separations reduces the load of the process by 90%, electrifies the most energy-intensive step in chemical production, and generates additional revenue for the customer. Today, Via is deploying its technology in pilot trials at pulp and paper facilities to eliminate 500 million metric tons of CO2 by 2050. Via's investors and partners include Prime Impact Fund, Safar Partners, The Engine, Embark Ventures, ARPA-E, the National Science Foundation, and Greentown Labs. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What does your company do? What makes you unique versus the competition? How are you funding your growth — e.g., revenue, VC, CVC, government grants, M&A? What are 1-2 lessons you’ve learned along the way? Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like? 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? What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- PODCAST HOST: Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself. Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM

Co-led by Cofounder and Managing Partner Abe Yokell, Congruent Ventures is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco. They focus on sustainability challenges and investing early across hardware, software, enterprise, consumer, deep technology, fin-tech, and business model innovation, with 36+ positive-impact investments to date.  Abe oversees Congruent’s investments in AMP Robotics, Blueprint Power, OptimoRoute, For Days, Leap, Omnidian, Amply Power, Raptor Maps, Span.IO, Vector, and Phase Genomics.  He has over 15 years of investment experience, having invested across sectors and business models, and was responsible for opening RockPort Capital’s West Coast office in 2007.  Abe graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Economics, with minors in Chemistry and Biology.  When not serving as entertainment for his young children, Abe enjoys hiking, cycling, skiing, travel, and pointing out solar roofs to whoever happens to be nearby. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What is your investment focus — e.g., sector, stage, geography, check size? What makes you unique versus the competition? Give us some examples of recent investments that you’re excited about. Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like? Personal Tell us about 1-2 tips you’d give your “younger” self 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? What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- PODCAST HOST: Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $5B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself. Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM