Risky Business
Last week, Mike, Qhalisa and Sam attended Climate Week in New York City - a week filled with events, relationship building with great partners and lessons learned.
TL;DR - climate risk might be better portrayed as a risk to your current way of living - your home/coffee/wine/travel/skiing/appreciating nature/political stability will all be impacted. Humans have tended to be good at predicting the future by analyzing the past but in this case, we will have to be better at understanding what our already determined future climate is, so that we can focus on quickly adopting the available and already viable solutions.
We also wanted to share some key learnings from an event we co-hosted below:
1) A lot of value comes from intimate discussions with smart people that have different viewpoints. Our topic was electricity grid challenges resulting from the rise of AI’s energy consumption, and how AI could actually help navigate the surge in demand. While fundamental changes to the grid are required, many feel that the safety and dependability that our utilities provide must continue to be priority #1.
2) Several large utilities are feeling pressure from their Public Utility Commissions (PUC) to improve grid flexibility, which means less peaker plants, decreased emissions and more innovative ways to shift when people consume power. They are looking to adopt tools that can safely and reliably provide more visibility into decision making. There are several startups doing this well, such as ThinklabsAI in our portfolio.
3) The energy transition has an uncertain short-term outlook, but the long term looks very strong. Later stage investors, and those that invest in infrastructure, are cautiously deploying capital into solutions. They hope to see more first of a kind (FOAK) facilities successfully built and more evidence of strong outcomes for climate companies in public markets. Fortunately, we heard repeatedly that the significant risks for society need to be addressed urgently, and the corresponding upside for those that have strong solutions could be huge.
4) Recognition that the Active Impact Investments brand is growing globally. Over the course of the week, we had people from around the world congratulate us on progress, exits, fundraising and share their excitement for our new investments. Our event only had space for 25 people and ended up with over 700 people registered! In VC, brand matters, and it was nice to see peers recognize the work we’re doing on both sides of the border to help move the needle on climate change.
