Entrepreneurs for Impact (EFI): Climate Tech CEOs & VCs

Led by Kate Steel, Nithio is using data science to build a platform for evaluating credit risk and facilitating institutional investment towards off-grid energy solutions in Africa. Below are two excerpts from the podcast. "Our mission is to unlock financing at scale for energy access in Africa. There are 600 million people in Africa who lack access to electricity. It is believed that about 300 million of these people would be best served by off-grid energy solutions. Fortunately, there is a strong off-grid solar market that offers a pre-packaged solution for many of these households. In addition, there is a robust pay-as-you-go financing structure layered on top of that. However, because these systems are not paid for up-front, there is some actual and perceived risk that must be managed to ensure the system is paid for in full over time. We are able to model and understand the consumer financing risk at the household level which enables investors to come off the bench and join the game, thereby fueling the deployment of this off grid solar and storage in Africa. Ultimately, we are creating an alternative credit model standard to unlock this broader financing potential." "We are an intermediary for a blended financing facility. We welcome all types of risk profiles, including equity and debt investors, but would like to see more institutional capital. We operate as a capital conduit enabled by our analytics engine. There are a few market leaders in the off-grid solar space in Africa and a long tail of smaller and often local companies as well. We exist to provide funding for many of these companies as they grow and scale into bigger players." Here is the transcript summary of the podcast. -- Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 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. Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members. To request more information on membership, click here. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Led by Wanona Satcher, Mahkers Studio builds residential and commercial spaces from used shipping containers. The company is currently focused on accelerating the speed of deployment while dramatically reducing the total cost of construction with its modular construction process in order to address the affordable housing crisis. Below are two excerpts from the podcast. "Mahkers Studio is a green manufacturing and design-build company. We creatively reuse shipping containers as a modular real estate solution. We are able to customize these containers as residential and community spaces with the most impact coming from their ability to serve as affordable housing solutions. We view our solutions as an improvement, in terms of material and land-use efficiency, within the traditional construction industry." "Our fundamental goal is to address the affordable housing crisis. In order to do so, we needed a cost-effective and abundant material that could be constructed in a more efficient and localized manner. These constraints naturally lead to shipping containers that are already existing and consequently cheaper. We are also able to achieve benefits in terms of carbon reduction, structural integrity, and land-use efficiency." Here is the transcript summary of the podcast. -- Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 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. Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members. To request more information on membership, click here. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.

Led by CEO Pandwe Gibson, EcoTech Visions serves as a co-manufacturing space in Miami Florida to help entrepreneurs and startups develop eco-friendly localized manufacturing capacity. Below are two excerpts from the podcast. "We are committed to limiting the planet’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in alignment with the UN’s recommendations and the ideal outcome of the Paris A. We aim to contribute to this broader mission by facilitating the distributed manufacturing of bio-resin and other environmentally friendly products in a manner that promotes entrepreneurship and innovation across materials sciences and business models. There is no need for every venture to figure out and build their own manufacturing capacity. They can outsource that to us." "Co-manufacturing can be compared to co-working offices in the sense that instead of sharing an office or workspace, entrepreneurs are able to share the use of advanced manufacturing equipment in a manner that is optimized for local supply chains. Legacy systems have traditionally forced entrepreneurs to outsource production to China and other parts of the world. This outsourcing comes at a significant cost in terms of complexity, fragility, and carbon footprint that we are looking to reduce by bringing cost-effective production back to the United States in a more regionalized way. We also aim to provide customers with about 10% cost savings through this shift." Here is the transcript summary of the podcast. -- Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for investor-backed CEOs, founders, and investors fighting climate change. We’re on a mission to help “scale up” climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our highly vetted, invite-only cohorts of 11 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. Here are membership benefits, and these are sample members. To request more information on membership, click here. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 50,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.