Earlier this week, we hosted our second annual Energy Capital Ventures Summit. The summit welcomed over 100 industry professionals, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and climate enthusiasts to engage on issues and opportunities in decarbonization, sustainability and digital transformation. The Energy Capital Ventures team wants to thank everyone who made it out to attend and looks forward to an even bigger summit next year. As we reflect on the summit, we wanted to share some key takeaways that became very apparent throughout the day’s discussion:
A fireside chat with the former secretary of energy, Dan Brouillette, set the tone for the day. He started by acknowledging that never in history have we just gotten rid of a source of energy. Every source of energy that’s been discovered is still being leveraged in some capacity throughout the world. The energy transition won’t include a phase out of any energy source, rather it will include growth in all types of energy, innovation in each, and the introduction of new energy sources. The case will be no different for natural gas, it will remain a reliable source of energy in certain geographies and industries, but it will look different as innovation makes it cleaner and diversified.
When we launched Energy Capital Ventures in 2021, we felt strongly about our investment thesis- but we were also aware we were embarking on a very niche approach to climate and energy investing. The technologies we look at have been historically underfunded and oftentimes overlooked. With the Energy Capital Ventures platform, these technologies and entrepreneurs have a home. There’s no shortage of Green Molecules innovation and the market is well positioned for growth.
From achieving technological breakthroughs, selling to establishing companies and receiving funding, the lifetime of deeptech companies is studded with unique challenges. Our panelists discussed how to approach these challenges more effectively while remaining agile and innovative. First off with scaling, mistakes and reworks are cheap while developing technology but they get far more expensive when you are scaling. The most important things to do are make sure you have all your assumptions down, know your risks, think of everything that can go wrong, and plan around it. Second, selling - to industry and VCs- can be especially challenging for deeptech companies. Identifying early champions, and value-aligned funding are required to set deeptech companies up for success. A special thank you to our speakers; Charlie Nelson from Cemvita, Francesco Benedetti from Osmoses, Benjamin Howard from Vertus Energy, Steve Richards from Sapphire Technologies, and Gurinder Nagra from Furno.
As the world moves closer to cleaner energy sources and tools like ChatGPT become more visible and widely used, the energy industry will undoubtedly be affected. Our panelists highlighted some key areas where AI will be most valuable; including the development of predictive maintenance technologies to ensure cleaner, safer energy systems, using AI to better engage with customers to achieve and promote energy equity and efficiency, and to catalyze sustainability transformation through stronger climate models and leveraging data that was too siloed before. Although these are all huge opportunities, it’s important to be aware of the challenges. For example, how challenging standards setting will be in the emissions management space as standards require detailed records of what’s been done. A huge thank you to our speakers; Iain Cooper from SeekOps, Thomas Fox from Highwood Emissions Management, Essie Snell from Copper Labs, and Karthik Balakrishin from ACTUAL, who shared some thoughts on the topics with WSJ this week here.
It was great seeing our friend and Strategic Advisor Timothy Alan Simon from TAS Strategies. As a former California PUC Commissioner, Chairman of the NARUC gas committee and Appointments Secretary to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Timothy provided invaluable insights into the substantive and political issues and sensitivities of the energy transition in the nations largest state. As he reminds us regularly - “As goes California, goes the rest of the country!” His comments and understanding of the political and regulatory processes is something all of us in attendance will be able to reflect upon as we navigate our decarbonization journeys.
Here at Energy Capital Ventures, we are lucky to have industry leaders as our Limited Partners. A special thank you to all of our Limited Partners for their continued support and engagement. Aside from just making investments, Energy Capital Ventures prides itself on connecting startups with the energy industry to test and deploy technologies. This year we got to hear from encoord and NIPSCO, an ECV Limited Partner, on a successful economic feasibility study they’ve conducted on the use of hydrogen as a fuel In utility operations. This is just one example of the various technical demonstrations or pilots that are currently running within the ECV innovation platform and we couldn’t be happier! Our Limited Partners and broader network are actively looking for ways to collaborate with startups. For more information on how strategic engagement works at ECV contact us here.
Energy Capital Ventures is proud to be investing in Green Molecules and creating a platform of innovation for the natural gas industry. Thank you to everyone who joined us this week. There’s a lot of work to be done and we’re enthusiastic for what’s to come.
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