Episodes

In today's show, I'm welcoming Jacqueline van den Ende, Co-Founder and CEO of Carbon Equity, a Climate VC and private equity fund investing platform that enables people to invest in the world's best climate funds. We cover: -Jacqueline van den Ende's personal journey, motivation, and drive in the climate tech space -The importance of involving the broader public in climate tech investments -Exploring strategies to combat greenwashing and the potential for geoengineering in climate solutions ----...

This time we're turning tables. I will not be conducting the interview. Instead, I will be interviewed. By popular demand, you will hear a little bit about me and my thoughts on some awesome topics, such as risk management, ways to become an angel investor with as little as $1000, alternative forms of growth, why technology won’t solve this deeper crisis faced by humanity, the critical need to better communicate visions, and the power of women to transform society! In addition, we will discuss m...

Climate Insiders has grown into a Top 7% podcast worldwide 🔥 Here are some key stats and a preview of what's coming next... ✨ Over 8,000 people have tuned in to at least one episode! (Psst… not many podcasters share their stats, I wish they did it more). For a niche and expert podcast, that's pretty good! 🤯 It's in the Top 7% of all Podcasts worldwide by number of downloads. That blew my mind. That also means we're pretty close to the lead in European Climate Tech. 🎶 Airing the show on both Audi...

Today's show features not just one, but two guests, who will provide super actionable insights to FINALLY demystify the IMPACT of Climate Tech Funds. -We will break down the most important concepts around impact measurements, such as SFDR, ESG, LCA, and other key acronyms ruling European Climate Tech. -We will ask two of Europe's best impact experts how they put it all into practice when making investments and growing their startup portfolio. -And we will answer some chicky questions to figure o...

Nicolas Derrien is the CEO and Founder of Continuum. He's a fervent entrepreneur who believes NO composite should be buried or burned and simply left for future generations to deal with. We cover: -The big problem of end of life wind turbines -The best solutions to recycling composite materials and fiberglass at SCALE -The best ways to fund a super CAPEX intensive business -The pathways to global scale and the opportunity for large corporates to play an important role -------------- ABOUT CLIMAT...

In today's show, I'm receiving Ulf Stenerhag the Founder of Wayout, a Swedish-based startup that produces Micro-Water Plants the size of a container. Ulf has a TON of insights to share. -How to crack the production of water locally and make it trustworthy so that people stop using bottles and drink from the tap again -Some surprising and shocking facts about the quality of water in our Western cities, and why we might actually ALSO rely on micro water plants in the future -How could Wayout's mod...

Keiran is the Founder of Entocycle, an insect-farming startup based out of London. They commercialize high-tech insect breeding modules to enable efficient and scalable insect farming. Keiran has a TON of insights to share. -Why insect farming is at a turning point due to Covid, the war in Ukraine, and the global protein shortage -The magical properties of insects to turn waste into highly nutritious protein -Why Europe has the lead globally on insect farming -Keiran's vision of the future and w...

Lars Nordal Jensen is the Director of Fund of Funds investments at Vaekstfonden, the Danish Growth Fund. Since 1992, The Danish Growth Fund has financed more than 5,400 Danish companies with a total commitment of more than €1.5 billion. The Danish Growth Fund invests equity and provides loans and guarantees for small as well as medium-sized enterprises in collaboration with private partners and Danish financial institutions We discuss: - The role of sovereign/government funds in the EU Venture C...

Caroline Walerud is a Swedish entrepreneur and Partner at Walerud Ventures, a deep-tech investment company that focuses on early-stage green tech startups. She also co-founded Volumental, a company that developed a cloud-based, 3D-scanning technology to create models to customize products and services. Walerud co-founded Volumental in 2012 together with three computer vision experts. In this episode, we discuss: - the most hands-on investment model in the World. Walerud invests and acts as a co-...

Marie Helene Ametsreiter is a General Partner at Speedinvest, an early-stage generalist fund based out of Wien in Austria, with more than €600m AUM and 40 investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, and Vienna. Marie-Helene oversees their newly launched Climate Tech fund. Marie Helene has a TON of insights to share: - her perspective on the latest trends in Climate Tech in Europe - the role of corporates in this transition - whether Planetly's "failed" acquisition can send a negative signa...

Irena Spazzapan is a Managing Partner at Systemiq Capital, a London-based climate fund and spin-off of Systemic Ltd. Systemiq Ltd is an advisory and investment firm focused on climate, that helps build companies that have the potential to meaningfully accelerate the transition towards net zero. Irena worked at Goldman Sachs for 13 years in Commodities, Gas & Power systems. I love conversations with Irena because you're always up for a ride and learn a ton on macro-trends, the psychology of the i...

Benjamin Kayser is a former French Rugby international with a 16-year-long career (he played 47 games with the French National Team, and hundreds in the French and English championships). Benjamin is a Co-founder and Partner at Teampact Ventures, a Venture Capital fund that specializes in human capital. Benjamin is a charismatic and inspiring character. He is living proof that the reconversion of former world-class athletes into Venture Capital investors is possible and can be very successful. W...

Benjamin Joffe is a Partner at SOSV , a global deep tech fund with 1000 portfolio companies and $1.3B AUM. They focus on early-stage planetary and human health. They invest the very first checks at pre-seed via the startup programs HAX (hard tech), IndieBio (biology), Orbit (frontier markets), and dlab (blockchain). Benjamin started in an investing role in the HAX program in Shenzhen (invested in Opentrons, now a unicorn), and later chose to work in a non-investing role across the portfolio. He'...

Christian Vollmann is the Founder and CEO at C1 / Circular Carbon Chemistry, a Berlin-based startup developing climate-friendly chemicals, for example, Green methanol. He has been involved in over 70 start-ups to date and has built several companies from zero to successful exit, including a listing on the NYSE We're receiving Christian on the show for his active involvement in the Climate Tech scene as both an entrepreneur and business angel Listen and Learn From contributor to climate change to...

Chris Wedding is an ex-Private Equity investor, 3x founder, professor at Duke University, a Climate CEO Coach, and a MONK ! Today's episode is a little special. Both Chris and I are running Climate Tech podcasts. The difference is that Chris has been doing it for a lot longer than I have, and he sits on the other side of the Atlantic, in the US. We talk about both ecosystems, and give LOTS of tips to Founders, and folks looking to switch careers and go all-in on the Climate Fight. Listen and Lea...

Antoine Hubert is the CEO of Ynsect , the world's largest insect farming startup based out of France. They were founded in 2011 and today they count more than 230 employees, have raised more than 450m EUR, which is half of ALL the investments made in the insect farming sector to date. They are considered the FIRST Climate Tech unicorn out of France (or "soonicorn") and the only one in the insect farming space globally. Listen and Learn Ynsect’s key pivotal moments in their 10-year journey (01:30...

Lawrence Leuschner is the Co-founder and CEO at Tier, Europe's largest micro-mobility startup based out of Germany. You can now ride TIER’s electric scooters, bikes and mopeds in over 130 cities, from London and Paris to Berlin and Dubai. They were founded in 2018 and today they count more than 900 employees, have raised more than $650m, and did 6 acquisitions to consolidate their leadership. There's a lot we will learn in this episode from Lawrence as a top entrepreneur but also an impact inves...

Christopher Burghardt is the ex-Managing Director Europe of ChargePoint, a US company that built the world's largest network of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. They went public in March 2021 on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and became the World’s First Publicly Traded EV Charging company. Today Christopher is a Venture Partner at 2150, an advisor to Goldman Sachs and an active Business Angel investing in startups and Climate funds (including Climentum Capital). We cover the role of...

In this episode we go deep into Europe's alternative meat space and discuss whether startups will win this race against US companies and food giants like Nestle. Pascal Bieri is the Co-Founder of Planted , a Zurich-based startup developing meat from alternative proteins. They produce alternative chicken, pulled pork, kebab and schnitzel and their products are available at restaurants and retailers across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and the UK. Listen and Learn US vs Europe: comp...

Agate Freimane is a General Partner at Norrsken VC , a €125m Swedish early stage impact VC investing in technology that solves some of the world’s greatest challenges. She comes from investment banking at Morgan Stanley and then worked at a PropTech/Fintech startup: Brickvest. In today's show, we will discuss with Agate: the state of Climate Tech in the Nordics the correlation between impact and financial returns What the current economic slowdown means for Climate Tech VC the biggest learnings ...

Pippa Gawley is the Founding Partner at Zero Carbon Capital , a UK Climate Fund investing in early-stage companies that are on a mission to fix climate change through deep science innovation She worked with eBay in the UK, moved to Silicon Valley and is one of the "re-immigrants" as she moved back to Europe. There's a lot we will learn in this episode from Pippa: how to crack the diversity problem in VC and Climate Tech in general. the level of maturity of the London and UK Climate tech scenes, ...

Alexander Langguth is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Übermorgen Ventures , an early stage Zurich-based venture firm with early investments in climate innovators like Sunvigo, carbo culture and delicious data. Alex has always shown a high level of transparency and collaboration with other Climate Tech investors. In this episode, I take you behind closed doors and give you maximum insights. We discuss Ubermorgen's evergreen fund model and why it actually helps to raise 1st-time funds. We h...

Nick de la Forge is a General Partner at Planet A Ventures , a German early-stage ClimateTech fund investing in start-ups that have a significant positive impact on our planet. I really appreciate Nick as a human being and for his unique value system. In this episode, we will be human, humble, and vulnerable and take you behind the scenes of raising and running a Climate fund. In this episode, we cover: The serendipitous meeting that led to the creation of 3 European Climate Tech funds ! Thought...

This episode goes deep into Fusion energy which is essentially the energy produced by the Sun. Fusion makes SciFi become reality. If achieved, it could alter humankind forever. So we're glad to have one of the leading Fusion companies in Europe on the show. Listen and Learn Heike’s transition from Big Consulting at McKinsey to a Fusion energy startup. Why Fusion is considered the Holy Grail of energy. Picture of the world running on Nuclear Fusion (how would it change transportation, food produc...