From Climate Breakthrough to Scale with Skyline Foundation, LabStart & New Energy Nexus, Ep #135

Speaker A: This is Invested in Climate with Jason Rissman. I see climate as the world's biggest, most diverse, most important movement in human history. Millions of people dedicate themselves every day to protecting the planet. This podcast shares conversations with advocates, entrepreneurs, investors, policy experts, and anyone else that can push our thinking about what's possible and what needs to happen to address climate change. If you have ideas for episodes or feedback, get in Touch on LinkedIn. If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating on Apple or Spotify. I'm currently building a new venture. It's related to storytelling and how we engage all sorts of folks in meaningful climate action. If you have expertise in this area, big ideas or examples of something that's really working, get in touch. Thanks for listening and for doing whatever it is you're doing to support climate progress. Okay, let's get started.

Speaker B: We don't have all the solutions that we need in the market, and it's because the private sector is unwilling to take the risks. They need to see a very well paved path to really big numbers and success. And so what philanthropy can do is really light those sparks, right?

Speaker A: Hi, everyone. Climate philanthropy plays an important role not just in supporting advocacy, research, conservation and education, but also in supporting technologies that would be overlooked by purely financially driven investors. It's an important topic and one that's worth covering from different perspectives. That's why we're running a series on climate philanthropy in partnership with Skyline Foundation. Earlier this year, we hosted a first conversation with Skyline's Climate Solutions portfolio lead, Sherene d'. Souza. And I'm pleased to welcome Shereen back today as guest host for an episode with two of her grantees that play important roles in supporting climate entrepreneurs. Sherene, welcome back.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, Jason, thanks so much for having us back. Uh, really appreciate your partnership on this. I don't know if you're familiar with the statistic, but something that really struck me is that on average, for a successful hard tech startup to go from lab to scale scale deployment of its technology, it's about, on average, a 10 year journey. And each step in that journey has its unique challenges. And that doesn't even take into account that quote, unquote, scale deployment in one country is going to look really different than scale deployment in another country. And so, because there are so many unique stages in the lab to market journey for startups, we figured that we'll see the quickest success in scaling viable climate technologies by supporting multiple stages of the journey. And I wanted to interview a couple grantees, Lab Start and New Energy Nexus in particular, because they're just such excellent examples of nonprofits supporting distinct yet equally important parts of that lab to market journey. The CEOs of both organizations, Deepa Lounsbury and Andrew Chang, joined me for the conversation and, and they're both just powerhouses and so getting to hear their individual and organizational perspectives was really fascinating. And they're quite different, they're distinct. So LabStart really focuses on the earliest stages of that lab to market journey. For a startup, it's really about salvaging IP and creating the company in the very earliest stages. New Energy Nexus, on the other hand, is about getting to scale deployment in geographies around the world, many of them Global South. And it just takes a special and specific expertise to be able to address the barriers that exist in one country versus another.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, here we go. Thanks again for your partnership. Looking forward to more to come.

Speaker C: I'm so glad to be joined today by a couple amazing leaders in the climate tech innovation field. Deepa Lounsbury is the CEO of LabStart and Andrew Chang is the CEO of New Energy Nexus. Deepa and Andrew, I'd love for you to introduce yourselves and your organizations and to tell us a little bit about the gaps your organizations fill and where in the 10 year journey it takes for successful climate tech startups to reach scale deployment. Where it is that your organizations come in. Deepa, you want to start, please?

Speaker B: Sure. Thank you, Shereen. Just really excited to be in conversation with you and Andrew, my former colleague actually. So in terms of my personal introduction, I have been working at the intersection of, uh, climate innovation and capital deployment for the last 20 years. I spent time as a venture capitalist, places like GE Ventures. And where I first met Andrew was at New Energy Nexus, where I got to launch Cal Seed or the California Sustainable Energy Entrepreneur Development Program. The other half of my career I spent actually launching climate products into the market. And all of those experiences that I had really led me to, I just noticed that there was this, this giant hole which was at the very beginning, Climate Entrepreneurs Journey. You know, who helped them, um, who provided the capital, who provided that truly that very first check and all the support needed. So that kind of brings me to the nonprofit that I lead, Lab Starts. And we're really focused on unlocking potential for the climate and we really are honing in on two pillars. One of them is human potential, which I'm sure Andrew can speak to this as well. I wish I knew the number of people interested in taking action and creating solutions for climate, but it is millions if not billions of people. And then on the other side there's the technology side. And in the US alone, we have 30,000 climate related patents in our national labs and universities. And so when we put those two together and provide the infrastructure, the capital, and literally just hit the go button on helping those people launch those deep technology startups, that's when we create all the solutions that we need in literally in all areas of project drawdown. And then I'll just mention two other things. I just want to say we are focused on deep climate technology. This isn't the six month startup where you're creating an app. These are literally the machines, the bacteria, the infrastructure needed to clean the electrons, purify our water that create clean electrons, clean our water and turn trash into treasure. And the last thing I'll say is that lab starts. I'm sure New Energy Nexus is also really built for Climate Technology 3.0. And because we're focused on the earliest stages of that entrepreneurial journey, we are making sure that those entrepreneurs, they're equipped to provide a better product. You know, it needs to be better, it needs to be cheaper, it needs to be just superior in every way because we know that success depends on, on more than just the decarbonization story.

Speaker C: That's great, Deepa. Andrew, what about you and New Energy Nexus?

Speaker D: Awesome. Yes, thanks, Shereen. Thanks for having me on this podcast. Super excited to be here. So just to give you an idea of New Energy Nexus and who we are and what we do. So we're a global nonprofit ecosystem builder with entrepreneurs as our key agents of change across 14 different countries in Asia, Africa and US and in the US we started 21 years ago in, in California. And the way we support entrepreneurs in the focus areas is deliberately broad. Right? It includes deep tech founders that are building, you know, lithium metal technologies, new battery innovations, but also solar innovation, solar installation businesses. We know that the clean energy transition is happening right now at this moment, particularly during this energy crisis. And we want to push out as much existing technologies as we can in clean energy in the markets that matter. We know these technologies like solar storage, batteries, EVs, this stuff works. And we want to get this to markets as fast as possible in the most affordable way in terms of our programs. So we have a number of programs that we support entrepreneurs with typically at the early stage. So everything from boot camps, hackathons, early stage grants, and seed capital to, you know, program that Deepa just mentioned earlier, Cal Seed has been really one of our flagship programs in Supporting your early stage companies from prototype to pilot. And this type of work is really fueling this clean energy innovation ecosystem because it's putting many bets on different types of technologies and we know that they're not all going to win, but I can tell you that the value creation from those winners is going to be massive. And so in the last decade we've really been focused on building this strong pipeline of startups. We've supported over 11,000 entrepreneurs, 1800 startups to date. We just released our impact report. This has mobilized $5.4 billion in fall one funding and revenue. And 68% of this portfolio lies in the global South. So really trying to get to markets in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, in Africa, and making sure these communities and people are getting the resources on clean energy. So I would say the next five to 10 years is really going to be about deployment and it's about implementation of existing technologies and removing those barriers for these technologies to flow. We'll probably talk a little bit more about deployment today and those barriers and how we remove them. And what this really comes down to is more ecosystem orchestration. So the last 10 years has been about supplying, building the pipeline of companies, you know, building a better mousetrap, improving efficiency, improving cost. Now we're trying to build up deployment, removing the barriers. So that means more commercial partnerships, subnational policy integration, building the workforce to actually build and maintain these systems, and of course addressing the financing and the supply chain gaps that we're seeing in the market today. So think of it as, you know, we've been supporting technology. Now it's really how do we get these products out to market as fast as possible?

Speaker C: That's great, Andrew, thank you so much to both of you for that information. Both of your organizations focus on entrepreneurs as the drivers of change and the solution to the climate technology gap we previously discussed. What does it look like for an entrepreneur to be part of your respective programs? Andrew, why don't we start with you?

Speaker D: Yeah, happy to share. So you know, every entrepreneur has a different problem set and particularly in different markets as well. Right. So the local barriers exist differently, manifest itself differently in each market. I would just give you a couple examples. Like in the Philippines right now, there's 1.8 gigawatts of rooftop solar, but a potential of 106 gigawatts. So we're still massively has massive potential to grow. And so we've actually started a program called the Solar Innovation Program which supports solar installers and EPC companies for financing for their small Businesses, client and customer acquisitions and business growth in Pakistan. Uh, you guys have probably heard of the big rooftop solar boom. 30 gigawatts of solar in the past five years, which is insane in terms of just what is happening and the phenomenon that's happening in Pakistan right now. We're riding that wave. Early stage founders join our Climate Innovation Pakistan incubator. It's a three month equity free program covering product validation, pilot design and investor introduction. So really trying to take advantage of that moment, let's just say. And then lastly in California we talked about Cal Seed again. I will continue the work that Depot really helped architect. This is providing grants funded by the California Energy Commission. This has included structured support with mentors and non dilutive grant capital to help startups in California move from prototype to pilot. So up to $700,000 in grants based off milestones that you reach in uh, terms of your technology maturity level. And we've deployed 66 million over 11 years. So our entire goal is meeting entrepreneurs where they are with support around their local market and making sure that we don't have just one standard template, but making sure that we have a tailored program for each of the market needs, uh, that we operate in.

Speaker C: Deepa, what does it look like for an entrepreneur in the Lab Start program?

Speaker B: New Energy Nexus is addressing the entire world. I'd say we are more focused on the United States specifically. So the way that the Lab Start program works is that we have a competitive application process. We've had hundreds of applicants from the United States mainly applying to the Lab Start program. And they apply by articulating what climate problem they're trying to solve while why they're the ones to solve it. And they also must have an idea of a patent or family of patents that could help them solve that. And so we have two different phases of the program. We have a four month discover phase, which I would say is the spark and that allows people to really have the infrastructure to build the thing that they've always dreamed of. I mean, when we think about even just the three of us here, what are the barriers we might have had to starting a brilliant climate technology company? Maybe you're waiting for the right idea, or maybe you're waiting for a teammate, someone to come join you on this. Or maybe you're just waiting for someone to give you the green light to quit your job so that you can dive in. Maybe you just need someone to provide a paycheck for a few months so that you can, you can follow your dreams and then the launch Phase is even a small group of people. This year we have six people in our launch phase and that is a full year long program and that is the build. And so by the end of this they will be ready to fly out of the nest. And during that time where they're like kind of outsourced executive team, we are making sure at the very earliest stages that they are doing their TAs to make sure that the economics are going to work out. We're doing LCAs so that we can make sure that they're having a substantial climate impact. They're doing a ton of customer discovery to make sure people want that. And the reason that it is so high touch is because we're really trying to create them from raw ingredients.

Speaker C: I love that. So one of the questions I had when I was first getting involved in the grant making space around climate tech innovation was why is philanthropy even needed to support the entrepreneurship support ecosystem? These are for profit startups, right? So why is philanthropic support needed? What would happen or what would we lose if we depended solely on the private sector to support new startups? Deepa, let's start with you.

Speaker B: I would say we tried to do that for a very long time. You know, I started as a venture capitalist back in 2006 and we don't have all the solutions that we need in the market. And it's because the private sector is unwilling to take the risks. They need to see a very well paved path to really big numbers and success. And so what philanthropy can do is really light those sparks. I would say that's the biggest picture of why but the advantage, and we know that philanthropy alone is not going to get us to 50 gigatons of uh, CO2 hormones are prevented from being uh, put into the atmosphere. But with the capital that philanthropy has, what you can do is get all the balls rolling. And I would say when philanthropy plays in the earliest stages, it is the best bang for your buck. We estimate it takes about $250,000 to launch a uh, startup from scratch and support them for the first 16 months and make sure that they have a really clear path to success. And I will say if we don't want to continue to reserve the privilege of starting really high impact, scalable deep climate technology companies to only those who have the personal capital to fund that. Our only choice is to depend on philanthropy and to some degree the public sector, and I'll just say we today are, are supported by a really diverse set of funders. And it's one of the things I'm Very proud of. Related to, you know, how we've been able to blend different capital and their interests to support these entrepreneurs in all the ways they need to be supported. So corporate philanthropy plays a big role. You know, through the Packard Enterprise, Salesforce, Equinix family foundations such as Skyline. You know, we're supported by the public sector and individual donors. And so I would just say the earliest stages in terms of that climate. I would argue that the earliest stages are where we need philanthropy most.

Speaker C: Thanks for that, Deepa. Uh, Andrew, what about you and New Energy Nexus? Like, what are your thoughts on why philanthropy is needed to support your work?

Speaker D: It's a great question. Uh, you know, I definitely agree with Deepa on this. In terms of what VCs are looking for, your typical 5x10x returns, and particularly in where we operate, which is a lot in the Global south, you're not going to look at see these billion dollar companies everywhere in some of these markets that we're operating in. Right. They may just be a solar installer that is doing 50 megawatts, 100 to 75 megawatts of rooftop solar. It's a small business, it's going to be profitable for them, but not backed in your sort of traditional sense, if you will. Right. So I think philanthropy has a opportunity to experiment, create a sandbox of, uh, programs and new initiatives and test different theories out, place different bets on new ideas, particularly where the private capital is not going to come in. And so, you know, as Deepa said, VCs, they need to be able to see track record in markets, they need to be able to see these comparable deals and credible exit pathways in order for them to actually put money in. Now where, particularly in the Global south where we're operating in these are areas where solutions like electric motorboat companies like Voto C and is uh, decarbonizing coastal communities is actually one of my favorite companies. They're around 3, 3 to 4 years old at the moment, but just incredibly local and having impact in those markets. So we did a feasibility study with them. Electric motorboard company alongside a solar powered cold storage unit to help fishermen in these communities be able to preserve their fish, have um, solar power, preserve their fish in the cold storage, which previously was in mostly styrofoam boxes and ice. And instead of using fuel for your motorboard, you've got electric motorboard that you can go back and charge. Right. You're saving up to $2,500 USD annually for each of these fishermen. And in places like Indonesia, there's 17,000 islands with lots of these fishermen communities. And so your market for that 12 million fishermen and in all of Indonesia, 90% of them are sort of your local, you know, not your big fishing conglomerates, but really hyperlocal. So I do think that the traditional definition of VC doesn't quite fit all the markets that operating in. And philanthropy has a way to plug in to have hyperlocal, hyper impact uh, in these communities and make sure that the end user at the end of the day is be able to benefit from cleaner air, cheaper energy costs. And so this is where I think philanthropy has a best opportunity to play in. And I would also say this, that in addition to putting money into technologies that are emerging, particularly in the global south, philanthropy has a way to test models. You know, Calc, if you will, is a model that was funded by the cec. Now we had just launched a program in Australia called oz. Testbed was based off the California initiative called Cal Testbed, which was uh, effectively using universities and R D facilities to validate technologies sort of at the TRL 5 to 7 technology readiness level. 5 to 7 area where they really need deep tech validation, third party testing. We actually launched that through philanthropy by Boundless Earth. So they're the folks at Atlassian, uh, and it's their foundation to really support that innovation in creating that model such that startups at that mid tier level that are deep tech can access these different university uh, facilities and do third party testing. And so I think philanthropy can also play in that space as well. Not just on the technology support, but also testing different models to enable and foster that innovation.

Speaker C: That's fantastic. Deepa, uh, Andrew just told us about one of the companies that he's so happy to support, the Motorboard in Indonesia. What about LabStart? Tell me about one founder or company that captures why your model works. What stage were they at when they came into your program? What did Lab Start provide to them and where are they now?

Speaker B: The entrepreneur I would love to pick. Her name is Seth Polkar and she is an architect in New York City. And she applied to our program with 20 years of experience building low income housing in New York City and won awards by Mayor de Blasio and all sorts of accolades. Now normally architects don't become entrepreneurs, but she had decided that solving this problem of uh, the unhoused in New York City, one building at a time, just wasn't going to cut it and that she needed to do something much more scalable. And so she set out to built her company and we supported her for her first year as she figured out Basically how to 3D print utilizing recycled polymers, ultra energy efficient housing for vulnerable communities. But what's amazing about her is her scrappiness because, you know, she basically bootstrapped and created our first. We funded her with $100,000, safe note, but with just a very small amount of capital, was able to not only pivot and realize that new, uh, construction was a harder market to get to then sort of a tenant in place retrofit, where you're putting kind of like a jacket, an energy efficient jacket on a building. But she was also able to, you know, bootstrap her New York city retrofit for $140,000 and make sure that everyone knew that, you know, really pay back in, in five years. And so anyway, unlocking the potential of someone like her who has deep experience and is able to kind of see the bigger picture is kind of what Lobster is all about. We have other entrepreneurs such as Joseph Kao from Magnify, who within three months of graduating the Lab Start program already closed his pre seed round a few million dollars. You know, Aaron Fitzgerald, which was our first, our very earliest pilot entrepreneur, we worked back in 2020. He is now off to the races and built a facility, you know, a uh, production facility in Texas that Bill Gates has visited, has raised $6 million. But I think it's every one of those stories show a different path and that different amounts of capital can unlock different people and honestly their dreams.

Speaker C: So in talking about why philanthropy is needed for climate tech innovation, do we have a sense of roughly how much philanthropic capital the field actually needs and how far off we are today? Deepa, do you want to start?

Speaker D: Sure.

Speaker B: Okay, so bear with me here on, uh, my back of the napkin math here. So as I understand, we debate about 10 gigatons of, uh, CO2 per year because the biggest picture is that, you know, we need to abate like a full 50 gigatons to keep us at that 1.5 degrees Celsius level. And so if we're saying we need to abate 10 gigatons of CO2 per year, and we assume that we are creating companies that each can abate about half a gigaton per year at scale, then we need 20 companies to reach scale. And because we all know we're in a risky business, if we just assume that we have a 1% success rate, then what we need is 2,000. And remember, this is from the Lab Start perspective, but basically 2000 lab start fellows funded to launch and assuming there's Some economies of scale. Hopefully there are. By the time we reach 2,000 Lab Start fellows, each of those fellows would need $200,000 to launch. And so if you basically multiply that 2,000 Lab Start fellows funded by 200K each, then the being $400 million that Lab Start would need to solve climate change. It's easy as that. Andrew, I would love to hear if you have uh, a take on this.

Speaker D: I don't know if there's a perfect number, but you know, directionally you have sort of big macro numbers, right? So IEA net zero scenario requires global energy investment to reach over 4 trillion and annually by 2030. Current estimates right now 1.8 trillion. So we're very far off. This is according to the IEA World Energy Investment Report. But within that we know that a lot of the climate tech accelerators and funding is less than 5% of the sort of overall portfolio of accelerators around the world. What I can share is how philanthropy, particularly in the case of Ikea foundation, has helped set the signal for some of our benchmarking in terms of how much can half a million dollars, 500k can catalyze in terms of investment. So I have two examples I can share with you. So as part of our Ikea foundation support for Indonesia, we actually as part of that made an investment, seven unique investments in a number of Indonesian companies from battery swapping to rooftop solar. Uh, one stop PV solutions for commercial industrial. There was a company called Schwab Energy that we put 500,000 into which catalyzed $35.8 million of an additional value. They sold over 20,000 electric motorbikes with the battery swap. So you can take the battery in. They have different charging stations at the cvs, the convenience store, plug it back in. They deployed over 1300 battery swapping stations across Indonesia, which is equivalent to 300 million kilometers traveled and equivalent to 28,000 tons of CO2 emissions avoided. So that kind of gives you a benchmark of okay, what can 500k get you in a market like Indonesia? In addition to that, Soraya is a one stop solar PV solution for commercial industrial rooftop owners. And it's pioneered the sort of zero down payment for switching to solar. So also sort of a financial innovation attached to this as well. That $500,000 that we put into that company catalyzed $88.5 million in follow on value creation and investment. They operate a portfolio of over 100 megawatts of solar PV systems with over 200 project sites, 164 megawatts uh, of energy generated annually equivalent to 147,000 tons of CO2, uh, avoided annually. So you have a number of what can happen with half a million and the amount of impact that can create in these markets, high growth markets like Indonesia.

Speaker C: That's great. That's a really tangible example from both of you. Deepa, let me change directions and ask you a question now about just the focus of LabStart. So one of the issues that comes up a lot in talking with other philanthropies about if and how to support tech innovation is that given the abundance of technologies that currently exist but struggle from deployment barriers, which is exactly what Andrew and you are Energy Nexus are working on, why shouldn't we focus our limited dollars on addressing these deployment barriers instead of creating new technologies?

Speaker B: There are a lot of challenges and a lot of barriers in this 10 year journey from lab to market. And um, honestly all of it is necessary. Supporting all of it is necessary. Figuring out how to lower the barriers for everyone is necessary. But in terms of what the value is and why don't we just deploy, deploy, deploy. According to the IEA, 40% of solutions we still need to meet our 2050 climate goals have yet to be commercialized. And so even if we deploy, deploy, deploy, we still need to have that uh, forward thinking understanding that we also need to develop the next set of technologies that are going to help us. Also we have many existing problems that we've all known about for a very long time. How do we feed everyone one while still protecting our biodiversity? And we have more and more people to feed every day. But there are also new problems that emerge or new opportunities. You can't go to any climate conference without hearing about data centers. And so we haven't figured out all the solutions that we need for both the old or the new problems. And so investing a small amount of capital in both, uh, what's in the future and what um, can we deploy today is probably a really effective way to go.

Speaker C: Thanks Deepa. Uh, Andrew, given that new Energy Nexus focuses on addressing deployment barriers in various geographies, how does the decarbonization pathway of a given country or region determine the type of engagement that New Energy Nexus takes?

Speaker D: One of the sort of magic neurogenex is being able to like I kind of talk about innovation arbitrage which is like taking innovation in one region and reshaping it, learning from it, taking it to another. So you know, these deployment barriers that you talk about, they're going to be unique to its market. So I'm going to give you three examples. First, California, where Neo Energy Nexus was born via the California Clean Energy Fund at the time. So you know, talking about uh, one of our Cal State companies, Thermoshade, which is actually a passive outdoor cooling panel requiring zero electricity, zero water and zero maintenance. They produce shade up to 2020 degrees Fahrenheit, cooler than outside air. And they received a 650K grant through Calceep and moved from prototype to pilot. And through that program they were able to deploy at a commercial bus shelter in Fresno State. And the challenge and the deployment barrier was okay, how do we de risk the business case and how do we actually put this product to market in use in one of the local regions? And so the deployment barrier there is really how do we de risk that business case? I'll give you example number two, Indonesia. I just talked about Voltal C, the electric motorboard company, as well as the cold storage, solar powered cold storage units. And when we did the feasibility study in Bunin island in Sumbawa, which is east of Jakarta, east of Java, part of the challenge with that was community buy in and community awareness and understanding. So technology itself, it's not new. New technology, right? Electric motorboard systems, it's definitely unique and new to the region, but around the world it's a technology that's been around. And so that deployment barrier was more around. How do we educate the fishermen about this? How do we give awareness about that? They're paying higher fuel costs right now for diesel versus some upfront cost that has a two year payback period for an electric motorboard company, Motorboard boat. Be able to educate that. Third one is Pakistan. And Roja Rohan built Pac Plug. It's an app connecting EV drivers to private chargers. So she joined our climate Innovation Pakistan incubator with renewables first shout out to renewables first. So 85% chargers already in pac plug system run on solar energy. And Pakistan has a massive uptake of a national target of 30% EV sales by 2030, but almost no charging infrastructure. So the barrier really is early adoption and where are the policies that are going to really drive and fuel the adoption of more charging infrastructure? And so three locations, three different unique deployment barriers and deployment challenges. But each of them, the way we operate at New Energy Nexus is trying to find where that value creation is, where's that pocket of opportunity to actually move the needle, move the dial and actually get solutions to those markets that need it most.

Speaker C: Those are fantastic examples. Thank you, Andrew. Your organizations have developed expertise in certain areas. But if you could inspire people to address some other problems in the climate tech innovation ecosystem, what would you advise? Andrew, let's start with you.

Speaker D: I think often people say finance, which is true, like finance. Getting that right, that's sort of an easy one. So I'm going to talk about another thing that I think needs a lot of work. So Jamil Wine developed this climate innovation wheel which I just want to refer to. I think that was really inspiring to sort of talk about all the different components of the climate innovation ecosystem and like where the different pockets of opportunity are. And what uh, I'm really interested nowadays is the involvement of sub national governments to push for decarbonization goals and projects. I think subnational governments are a lot more agile to put policies, local state policies or subregional policies in place to stimulate industry either through tax benefits, grants, subsidies for electricity. Like it's very hyperlocal to the industry and they have the ability to help industry say okay great, I've got sub national state level backing to adopt this technology, to pilot this, to use my state as a testbed and with that we can then deploy these solutions much faster. We can reduce the permitting times for solutions to get to market and also just send signals to other sub national governments or regions to say hey, we're doing this, we want to be a leader in the package, you guys should do it too. So we've had a lot of experience this experience with this in California with the California Energy Commission, New York State with nyserda, New York State Energy Authority. We've done some work in Abu Dhabi with Mubadala and really trying to generate climate tech momentum in the region. We're working in Australia right now with the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to support startups. So I think a lot of this is really this push on how do we set the right signal, how do we get political buy in and you know, because finance will flow where government policies are flowing. So if they set, if they can set the signal that we are going to invest in this specific technology, we're going to do these pilots, then I think others will follow. So I'm particularly interested in the agility in signal empowerment that subnational governments have.

Speaker C: Thanks uh, for that Andrew. Deepa, what about you?

Speaker B: I love that answer. Andrew. Honestly policy makes markets and subnational governments have a lot of power and also a lot of interest in the climate technology ecosystem is a giant opportunity for any economy. And honestly they should be competing for these technologies, these entrepreneurs and these startups. But I want to mention two things so one of the things that makes labstart unique is our interest and effort in unlocking intellectual property. We as uh, US taxpayers have paid billions and billions of dollars to create these 30,000 climate related patents. And we have to figure out new pathways to get more of at least the worthwhile ones out into the Lab. Just in 2025, Lab Start entrepreneurs evaluated over 800 patents. But that still leaves so many more on the table. And you know where I think that this will be public by the time that this podcast airs. Um, but you know, we're working on a grant with Schmidt Family foundation to rescue intellectual property. And there are so many places where it's hidden, not only in our academic institutions, but also, honestly, in all the skeletons from climate technology companies that didn't make it. And many of them didn't. Many of them failed to make it not because their technology wasn't worthwhile, but because maybe that person didn't have access to the capital that they needed. So I think that there is an opportunity for philanthropy to play there. There are not only just individual barriers for people who didn't graduate from specific or uh, aren't affiliated with specific institutions to access them, there are, there are systemic barriers as well. So I think that is a place that philanthropy can play. The second thing I want to say is that Lab Start is focused on, you know, I'll just say like incubating and hatching the egg and like you pick whatever animal fits your style. It could be a bird, a reptile, a unicorn, but for that baby, for that chick or whatever animal you choose to truly thrive and be successful. You know, we need all the later stage, like all the support organizations, the entrepreneur, support organizations that follow to be successful. We need the activates, the elementals, all the later stage ones to remain healthy. Because when there are holes in the ecosystem, honestly, none of us win. So I would just challenge philanthropists to think of this ecosystem really in a holistic way. We as Americans are lucky to have such a developed climate ecosystem. Andrew, is there sometimes as one, as the only player in a market, or one of just two or three? We need to continue to support this robust ecosystem that we have. We need to continue to support this robust ecosystem to make sure that we, uh, do amazing things together. Because none of us, individual organizations have the capability to unlock all the pieces that we need to address climate change.

Speaker C: Thank you. My last question for the both of you, and we'll start with Deepa. Uh, if you had the resources you needed over the next five years, what would you would be true about the climate tech landscape that isn't true today. And what's the single most useful next step for a listener who wants to engage?

Speaker B: That is a great question to dream about with you, Shaheen and Andrew. Well, listen, I, you know, LabStart just launched in 2020 and I am so proud of what we did. Just in the last year we launched 24 fellows and our Discover program across 12 states. We have 15 funders supporting us and we're working across 10 different sectors of, uh, climate. But if we had the chance to dream and if we had the resources that we needed over the next five years, we would launch 250 entrepreneurs. And not just launch them, but make sure that they're creating durable climate technology startups, ones that literally the market cannot say no to because what they're producing is so appealing. The other thing that we would do is address not just the timeliest sectors, but we would be able to create cohorts to focus on both the highest need, but also the timely aspects of today. So we could replicate what we did with our data center cohort, where we're bringing in the stakeholders from day one and other industries like food systems like firetech, biodiversity, and maybe even one day the global south. Because the United States has so much to share. Many things begin their journeys here and then go on to impact the rest of the world, including Andrew himself as a human being from Oakland to the rest of the world. And so that's what Lab Start would do. And we would, you know, if you look at that project drawdown circle, we would have entrepreneurs working in all of those areas to make sure that we are addressing the problem holistically. My number one ask for anyone who's listening who's really excited to support Lab Start would be to introduce us to climate aligned family offices. You know, multi year unrestricted UM grants are the lifeblood for any nonprofit. And that allows us to be agile, adaptable and brave.

Speaker C: Thanks, Deepa. Andrew, same question for you. If you had the resources for the next five years, what will be true about the landscape?

Speaker D: I'll just start by saying I'll take Deepa's ask as well. So, uh, I've been thinking a lot about this in terms of like we're in this moment, right, of multiple phenomenons all happening at the same time. I'm just thinking about straight up Hormuz energy crisis, but also the energy opportunity and you know, five years from M now what I'm hoping to see is that the next time we have a supply or fuel Shock that we respond with, hey, we're good, you know, we've got all the clean energy solutions out there right now. This doesn't affect us. And the reason why I say that is because, uh, I was in a Bangkok for a, uh, leadership retreat in March. And I'm actually going to read from the Bangkok posts because we were at the heart of it at that time when the war in Iran had started. I'm just looking at this newspaper. There was an excerpt that said gas prices. Laos 65.5% Myanmar 68.9% increase Cambodia 60% Philippines 81.4% increase Thailand 34.4% increase for gas. Some of the diesel in these markets as well, you know. Singapore plus 53% Cambodia 96.5% Thailand 30.1% these are crazy numbers in terms of the fuel costs. And you are starting to see the after effects of, of industries completely losing out because they simply cannot afford the fuel anymore. And so to me that was an eye opener about okay, great, like how do we every crisis there's an opportunity, right? So how do we take this moment of crisis and rebuild a better future, that we have more resilient systems, that we have the workforce to install and maintain these systems. We already have the financing architecture to fund these programs in emerging markets, to fund these solutions on the ground, in the communities. And so this is where I hope five years from now we'll be in a place where we can withstand these shocks. Our goal is 100% clean energy for 100% of the people. And the faster that we get there, the more resilient we'll be, the better we can deal with affordability, the better we can deal with economic security, the better we can deal with economic resilience and better livelihoods. And so if we continue to build the narrative around that, around creating value for economics, for economy, creating value for, uh, livelihoods and of course, more importantly and most importantly for addressing climate change. And that's where I hope five years from now will be. And so where philanthropy continues to play that role is how to continue to test and prove these models in markets that private capital may not be there yet, or philanthropy has the opportunity to de risk that path so that institutional money does arrive, that ecosystem is ready, we have the solutions, we have the people, we have the workforce, we have the supply chain. And so that's sort of what keeps me up at night. And I am excited about the challenge and the opportunity. And to deepest point, you know, us continues to be a hotbed for innovation. Talent and market. And in addition to the us, how do we learn from other markets as well? There are other markets that are doing things in ways that we can learn from. And so at New Energy Nexus we try to be able to create these cross pollination insights learnings and that climate and clean energy is a global issue.

Speaker C: Thank you so much Andrew and Deepa for all that you individually and your teams are doing for for your organization's New Energy Nexus and Lab Start. So grateful to be in partnership with you.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: Thanks for joining us for this episode of Invested in Climate. Please remember to rate us on Apple, Spotify or Google Find, show notes, sign up for updates, get in touch and visualize your climate action@investedinclimate.com this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and design, not constitute financial, accounting or legal advice. Thanks again.