Avsnitt
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Elbow Beach is an early-stage climate tech VC. They help to unlock technologies, solve big problems and transform industries. To date, they have made 20 investments.
JP co-founded Elbow Beach in 2021 and is CEO. With over 20 years’ experience in large telecoms and tech companies, he brings deep operational experience to commercialise technology. He transitioned into climate tech investing, combining his passion for commercial success with purpose-led companies. Throughout his career, JP has led numerous turnaround stories by focusing on customer and colleague outcomes, driving both business success and meaningful impact.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:39 - Intro to JP and Elbow Beach
5:30 - Which stages and ticket size does Elbow Beach invest in?
6:21 - JP’s reflections on 2024 broadly and also within Elbow Beach specifically
10:22 - Is traction in international markets a strong differentiator for companies looking to raise Series A and beyond?
11:02 - Is there a risk that trying to handle UK and international markets can lead to founder focus and marketing not being strong enough in either market?
13:22 - JP’s predictions and thought for the 2025 fundraising market
18:12 - Which climate technologies are ripe for growth currently?
20:09 - What does Elbow Beach look for in potential investments?
22:16 - What are the minimums you look for a team? How mature does it have to be and can gaps be filled by fractional support?
25:43 - When should founder-led sales be changed for a commercial / sales team?
28:15 - JP’s advice for founders looking to raise this year
31:25 - How to contact JP and Elbow Beach
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Angel investor, James Manktelow, has invested in 25 climate startups since 2019 via Green Angel Syndicate. He focuses on accelerating the growth of IP-based startups that develop solutions to climate change.
The syndicate at Green Angel is the largest in the UK with a climate focus; it has over 350 members and has invested in over 45 startups and early-stage companies across ten different economic sectors.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:48 - Intro to James and Green Angel Syndicate
2:15 - James’ investment thesis and what he looks for in investments
3:21 - James’ reflection on the 2024 investment and climate tech landscape
4:46 - Out of your portfolio companies, did any perform particularly well during 2024?
5:54 - Did you see any common themes amongst companies that did well?
6:37 - James’ predictions for 2025 investment
8:20 - Which parts of the climate market have good opportunity for growth?
10:15 - As an angel investor, how do you hear about companies to invest in and how do you conduct diligence?
12:06 - How do you support businesses as an angel?
14:13 - What has James learnt from investments that haven’t gone so well?
16:33 - James’ advice to founders looking to raise an angel round - what should they have in place?
18:15 - How influential are incubators when considering an investment?
19:16 - James’ thoughts on investing in solo founders.
20:15 - What level of commercial traction is needed for investment?
21:34 - How much can you determine the founding team’s resilience during due diligence?
23:19 - How to contact James via Green Angel Syndicate
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Eric Kohlmann is a partner at Climate First, a VC firm established in 2023. It has since grown to not only invest in technologies that will disrupt highly emitting, multi-billion dollar industries; but has also become an official nominator for Prince WIlliam’s Earthshot Prize, offers programs that provide knowledge, know-how, and mentorship, and they run an exclusive roadshow in London to cultivate further connections and opportunities for founders.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:25 - Eric’s reflections on 2024 and the climate ecosystem
4:00 - The differences Eric has seen between the USA and Europe since moving to London in 2024
5:48 - What does Climate First invest in?
8:27 - Which companies in your portfolio performed particularly well in 2024?
10:09 - What helped those companies to be successful?
12:31 - Which technologies Eric is excited about for 2025.
15:31 - What does Climate First look for in a company when investing?
18:04 - How does Climate First support founders with commercialisation and scaling?
20:03 - How are big, corporate industry players responding to the Climate First roadshows?
21:18 - Eric’s advice for founders looking to raise investment.
23:15 - What stages does Climate First invest at and start conversations?
24:01 - How to contact Eric and Climate First.
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Kate Ronayne is a deep tech climate investor from BGF. She particularly enjoys drawing on her time leading commercialisation activities from UK national laboratories to find, validate and back teams who are using exciting science to solve big challenges.
BGF invests in small to mid-sized UK businesses. As the most active equity investor in the UK and Ireland, they back a wide variety of ventures from climate to pet food.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:47 - Intro to BGF and their thesis
3:56 - Kate’s reflections on 2024 and the trends she noticed
5:12 - Has there been a shift away from asset-light propositions towards hard tech and deep tech?
7:03 - Which BGF climate companies have done particularly well and what helped them to succeed?
10:34 - Predictions for climate investment in 2025
12:49 - How will the US election result affect climate work in the EU and the opportunities for companies to expand into the US?
17:28 - What technologies Kate is excited about for 2025
22:12 - What does BGF look for in investments?
27:15 - How does BGF assess a team during due diligence?
29:32 - Kate’s advice for founders who want to approach BGF for fundraising
33:21 - How to contact BGF and Kate
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Chloe Coates is a research and analysis lead at Zero Carbon Capital. As well as her work at Zero Carbon, Chloe has hosted sessions at The Drop, been featured by ClimateHack and was a judge at the 2024 Global Challenge Lab Demo Day.
Zero Carbon support companies working to solve the biggest challenges of decarbonisation with pre-seed and seed investments in ambitious teams building hard-science solutions across Europe and Israel.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:29 - Intro to Zero Carbon Capital and their investment thesis
2:41 - Chloe’s reflections on the 2024 climate landscape
4:43 - What contributed to certain portfolio companies doing well last year?
7:43 - Thoughts and predictions for the fundraising market and early-stage investment in 2025
11:42 - What areas of the market are you excited about?
15:15 - What does ZCC look for in investments?
17:05 - What does ZCC expect in terms of demonstrable traction?
19:14 - Chloe’s advice for founders who might want to approach ZCC for investment
21:01 - How can founders make their pitch stand out?
22:33 - How to contact ZCC and Chloe
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Founder and managing partner of Greencode Ventures, Dr. Terhi Vapola. Along with her team in Helsinki, Greencode invest in digital-first early-stage green transition startups across Europe. They have a particular interest in green energy, mobility, built environment and green industries.
Founded in 2022, Greencode’s investments include renewable energy startup, Synergi, green hydrogen software solution, Southern Lights, and climate risk platform, Repath.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:36 - Intro to Terhi and Greencode Ventures
5:12 - Terhi’s reflections on the 2024 fundraising market
7:13 - Greencode portfolio companies that did well in 2024 and why they did so well
9:03 - Terhi’s predictions for the 2025 climate investment market
10:23 - What subsections of climate could have a good year?
12:08 - What does Greencode look for in investments?
15:16 - What stages does Greencode invest at?
16:20 - How much traction do you look for?
17:30 - What minimum do you look for in a founding team’s establishment? And how long should founders lead sales before bringing in a sales team?
19:38 - How much does talent and talent mapping make up part of your due diligence for investments?
21:46 - Terhi’s advice for founder’s thinking of raising this year.
25:04 - How to contact Greencode
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Jeremy Brown is an Investment Principal from Anthemis Capital. Jeremy is head of climate strategies and focuses on seed to Series C investments across Europe and the USA. With a keen interest in the intersection of climate and fintech, Anthemis is the perfect home for Jeremy, as they support pre-seed to growth-stage companies that embed finance in their products, services and operations.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:08 - Intro to Jeremy and Anthemis
10:09 - Jeremy’s reflections on the 2024 fundraising market
18:02 - What are you excited about for 2025?
22:47 - What does Anthemis look for when investing?
27:24 - What would you expect founders to have in place to raise?
30:18 - How to contact Jeremy and Anthemis
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Arjun Jairaj is an investor with noa VC. The team at noa are building Europe’s largest tech fund dedicated to transforming the built world. They invest in pioneering founders and breakthrough technologies that decarbonise the built world.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:36 - Intro to noa VC and their investment thesis.
3:09 - What stages and areas do noa VC invest in?
3:46 - Is built environment primarily deep tech and hardware based?
5:28 - Arjun’s reflections on 2024’s fundraising market.
11:01 - What do you think companies in your portfolio have that has made them particularly successful?
13:27 - Predictions for the 2025 market for early-stage climate investment.
19:54 - What are noa VC looking for in teams and startups when you invest?
21:30 - What is the minimum you’d be looking for in a team at an early stage and do you think gaps can be filled by fractional executives or advisors?
23:45 - Advice for founders looking to raise this year.
26:02 - Advice for founders on how to manage the fundraising process and make sure the business is still being well looked after whilst their attention is elsewhere.
28:25 - How to get in touch with Arjun and noa VC.
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Stuart Ferguson is an investor with Sustainable Ventures, who as well as offering investment to earth-saving startups, also operate two co-working spaces in London and Manchester, with sole focus on climate tech. In fact, we here at Above & Beyond use their London space regularly.
Stuart is particularly passionate about early stage investing and loves working with new entrepreneurs to help them realise their ambitions.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:27 - What are your reflections on 2024 for investment?
2:38 - Were any of your portfolio companies particularly notable last year? What do you think helped them succeed?
4:00 - What do you predict for the UK climate funding landscape in 2025?
6:37 - Are you seeing a difference in how climate companies are positioning themselves?
8:15 - What do you look for when making investments?
11:34 - What support do Sustainable Ventures offer post-investment?
13:26 - What parts of the climate industry are you excited about and see potential in?
15:41 - Advice for founders looking to raise funds this year.
19:42 - What is the minimum viable amount of traction you’d be looking for?
22:59 - How to contact Sustainable Ventures.
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Roberta Franchi is an investment associate at Counteract. Counteract is a carbon removal company combating the climate crisis through research, development and investment. They give engineer and scientist entrepreneurs the financial and strategic support to turn fresh ideas into self-sustaining businesses with the potential to capture or store greenhouse gases at a global scale.
During this series of bite-sized episodes, I’ll be speaking to investors from across the climate ecosystem to get their reflections on 2024, insights about the funding landscape for 2025, advice for founders looking to raise, and finding out what they’re most excited about for the coming year.
1:37 - An intro to Counteract
3:04 - How was 2024 for the CDR market?
6:48 - What is driving corporates to sign off-take agreements?
9:35 - How do you see the 2025 CDR market developing?
13:19 - What do you look for in investments?
15:45 - What are you excited about in the CDR landscape?
17:49 - What advice do you have for founders looking to fundraise?
19:39 - Where can people find out about grants they could apply for?
21:04 - How to contact Counteract and Roberta.
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Establishing a culture where team members can thrive is vital, but with the move towards hybrid and remote work over the last few years, it can sometimes be hard to know where to start when people aren’t spending as much time with each other.
Geraldine Butler-Wright is a chief people officer with far-reaching experience across multiple areas of tech, international businesses and in both startups and scale-ups, which have operated as fully remote, hybrid and on-site. She’s seen it all!
She helps companies establish people processes and supportive cultures that make team members want to stay. As the founder of RorCas, she works as a consultant to guide startups and scale-ups to get the “people part” right, so focus can be on revenue, product-market fit, investment and growth.
During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.
I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.
So, whether you’re a founder starting to scaling your team, a hiring manager looking for top talent, or simply curious about how diverse teams are tackling the planet’s most pressing challenges, this series is for you.
2:16 - Why do you love working with small, early-stage companies and teams?
3:35 - Do you see patterns in people-related challenges within early-stage businesses?
5:00 - How do you guide people who might never have run a business or managed a team before? How do you learn to be a leader?
6:26 - Are some people not suited to being a leader?
7:33 - At what stage do you think companies should start to think about career pathways?
11:01 - How can you reconcile the tension that can come within startups where employees want career pathways but the direction of the company can change as it scales, meaning opportunities change.
13:29 - How do you help hiring managers to set the bar and understand what makes an A-player for their team?
19:02 - How can leaders handle the feeling of perhaps wondering whether they haven’t done enough to support an under-performer?
21:07 - How can companies build a positive and supportive feedback culture?
24:45 - How do you advise people to manage a function or role, when perhaps that’s not their background and they don’t have direct experience of doing a role?
27:43 - What should founders be mindful of when building remote or hybrid teams?
32:32 - How do you ensure continuity of culture when some people are remote and some are in the office?
33:58 - What mistakes do you see keep coming up with remote work?
36:38 - What are some easily transferrable culture creation tips that could be applied to other companies that came up from your time at Healthily?
40:37 - What important lessons have you learnt about scaling at pace and maintaining a great culture whilst you do it?
44:50 - How do you handle urgency-bias and ensure it doesn’t cause cultural problems down the line?
48:09 - As a startup changes during growth, how do you advise people to handle those difficult conversations when someone who was right for a role at the beginning, isn’t the right person further down the line?
53:20 - What are some simple practices and boundaries you would recommend to founders to protect their mental health?
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The first few hires in any team are key but what about scaling beyond that as you progress through funding rounds and possibly acquisitions and exit?
Dimple Patel is currently CEO at NatureMetrics and as a highly accomplished entrepreneur, she’s seen it all, from MVP to new markets and fundraising stages right through to exit. A strong team is what gets you there, to secure funding and drive growth, so she knows how vital it is to build a team of A players.
During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.
I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.
So, whether you’re a founder starting to scaling your team, a hiring manager looking for top talent, or simply curious about how diverse teams are tackling the planet’s most pressing challenges, this series is for you.
1:31 - Dimple’s journey from banking to coffee to tech to biodiversity.
5:35 - Why did you choose to join NatureMetrics?
9:49 - What stage was NatureMetrics at when you joined and how have things changed since you joined a year ago?
14:42 - What is the culture like at NatureMetrics and how does your mission feed into that?
19:16 - How do you show up as a leader and how do you feed into the culture?
24:27 - What challenges and lessons have you learnt across the variety of businesses you’ve worked in?
27:29 - What are some ways to build trust between team members?
32:47 - When you’re working in an early-stage industry, how does that impact finding the right talent?
38:02 - Advice for leaders who are scaling their business and maybe the people who were in the business early-on aren’t right for the long-term.
45:15 - Have mentors helped you understand team building?
48:26 - How important do you think it is to be part of industry communities?
53:07 - What key piece of advice would you offer for building a culture that will endure?
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As any team starts to scale, it becomes more and more important to have sustainable and repeatable processes in place. But it’s also not uncommon for that to be overlooked in favour of things like sales and fundraising.
Sherry White is a consultant who works specifically with startups and scale-ups to tackle challenges, unblock and improve leadership, establish good foundations, face tough questions and get things moving fast!
She covers everything from culture and employment law, through to health and safety and commercial balance.
During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.
I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.
So, whether you’re a founder starting to scaling your team, a hiring manager looking for top talent, or simply curious about how diverse teams are tackling the planet’s most pressing challenges, this series is for you.
1:34 - Sherry’s journey from lab spaces to HR.
3:34 - Are there any particular challenges that you see come up in STEM environments?
6:28 - What are the main things you work with people on in early-stage businesses?
7:47 - What parts of HR and People processes do you often see neglected?
8:40 - What basics should people look at getting in place early?
10:20 - Can startups write their own policies or do they need templates or a consultant?
11:50 - How can startups offer good benefits on a tight budget?
14:25 - Thoughts on equity as part of a compensation package.
16:11 - What makes a good onboarding process?
19:08 - Tips for scaling onboarding as the company grows.
20:53 - Can video recorded onboarding work or should it always be in-person?
22:05 - Is it a good motto to hire slow and fire fast?
24:24- What are the legal requirements when letting someone go?
26:19 - Being aware of disabilities in hiring and firing.
32:57 - How early should you consult with an HR expert? Is it ever too early?
34:53 - How often should you review your HR policies?
36:36 - How to get in touch with Sherry.
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Supporting and engaging neurodiverse talent is a vital part of team building. Parul Singh comes from a background in tech and recruitment and has first-hand experience of the challenges faced by neurodiverse people in the workplace, having been diagnosed in 2021 with autism and ADHD.
Prior to diagnosis, she had experienced burnout, self-destructive behaviour and had struggled in both education and workplace settings. Now with a better understanding of her own needs and divergence, she is the founder of Parallel Minds. She is dedicated to creating positive change for neurodivergent people in the workplace, and supports businesses with recruitment training, coaching for leaders and line managers, running neurodivergence awareness sessions and more.
During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.
3:00 - What was your personal journey towards diagnosis and what made you seek that out?
7:41 - Was there a sense of relief that came with being diagnosed?
11:08 - What led you to leave the workplace and set up Parallel Minds?
13:00 - Key definitions around neurodiversity.
19:08 - Why is it important to talk about and understand neurodiversity in the workplace?
21:56 - Why is there a lack of disclosure between employees and employers?
25:22 - What can companies do to create a safe environment where people feel comfortable to have conversations about their neurodivergence?
28:15 - Startups are very fast-moving and experience a lot of change. Autistic people often struggle with change, so how can you create an environment where everyone can thrive?
31:47 - You can’t be everything to everyone, so at what point do you say ‘this is our company and it might not be for everyone’?
35:33 - What could companies be doing better to tackle common challenges?
46:36 - What coping mechanisms and toolkits do you use to help you?
RESOURCES:
Connect with Parul
Neurodiversity resource bank
Neurodiversity in tech report 2023
Research on the link between ADHD and burnout
DARE report on adjustments
CIPD neuro-inclusion at work report 2024
Equal tech report 2023
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There’s a lot that goes on within a hiring process but what is it actually like from the perspective of founders and the C-suite, when trying to scale a business and build out that initial team?
Sebastian Leape previously worked as a sustainability consultant at McKinsey and has now turned his attention to encouraging people to embed nature into business decision-making. He is CEO at Natcap, where they offer a simple and scalable platform to bring together the world's best science, data and technology to create actionable insights and empower organisations to measure, report and ultimately act on their nature-related risks and opportunities.
During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.
I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.
So, whether you’re a founder starting to scaling your team, a hiring manager looking for top talent, or simply curious about how diverse teams are tackling the planet’s most pressing challenges, this series is for you.
1:50 - Where was Natcap in the People journey when you joined and where are you today?
5:22 - How have you stayed true to your scientific and academic roots, and progressed without alienating early employees?
8:43 - What challenges have you faced over the last couple of years when it comes to building out the team?
11:18 - How did you plan your benefits package and what did you decide to include, particularly in light of a tighter budget as a startup?
13:38 - How much did you consult with the team about what to include in the benefits package?
15:14 - Where did you not do onboarding so well and what have you learnt and changed during the process?
19:43 - How did you ensure that managers were able to take over onboarding as the company grew?
23:24 - As your strategy and headcount have changed, how have your company values had to evolve?
30:01 - Did you have any external support when finalising your branding, values and mission?
32:16 - How do your values feed into your recruitment process?
34:34 - How intentional were you when it comes to gender diversity and were there challenges?
39:03 - How have things changed from a People perspective now that you’re post-Series A?
41:41 - Have the characteristics and experience of team members changed in light of Series A and has the team changed overall?
43:28 - What have been your key learnings from the last couple of years and what advice would you give to early-stage founders for team building?
48:26 - Would you advise starting to hire before closing a round, as you did with your Series A, and did that room to hire slower make it better?
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Filling a role is about more than just sending a job ad out into the world. How do you attract the best people to apply? And once you have them, how do you keep them? This is where your employer brand can play a big part.
Graham Quinn is a specialist in crafting irresistible employer brands and employee experiences. He has conducted employer brand audits, built communications strategies for entire culture and values refreshes, and has created engaging marketing to attract underrepresented groups in tech and improve diversity.
He is also now a partner with Flexa, the company working to help people find truly flexible workplaces, where he contributes to thought leadership and works with Flexa-listed companies to improve their employer brand and attract top talent.
During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.
I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.
So, whether you’re a founder starting to scaling your team, a hiring manager looking for top talent, or simply curious about how diverse teams are tackling the planet’s most pressing challenges, this series is for you.
Open Org
1:54 - Basics of employer brand and what it means
4:56 - Is it ever too early to start thinking about employer brand?
8:43 - Where do you see companies get things wrong, and how can people starting from scratch avoid the pitfall of internal experience not matching up to the front the company presents externally?
11:58 - For smaller organisations does it make sense to bring someone in to achieve an unbiased view of your culture and brand?
17:08 - Thinking about who you’re not for, is as important as knowing who you are for when it comes to employer brand and attracting talent.
21:17 - How do you specify your culture and who would be a good fit for your team but also be inclusive and encourage diversity?
23:28 - How can choice of language convey employer brand and culture? Is swearing okay?
28:23 - What are some easy wins in employer brand that early-stage startup founders can act on to get started?
32:00 - Where do personal brand and employer brand meet?
38:58 - Do reviews on sites like Glassdoor really make a difference?
46:15 - Should you ask about company culture in a 1:1?
48:24 - As a company grows, who should own employer brand and how often should it be revisited?
50:56 - Should this be continuously looked at as part of C-suite or broad meetings?
53:06 - What one thing should early-stage founders do to get started with this?
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Creating an inclusive workplace is vital, not just for employee wellbeing but also to increase innovation and creativity, which are key in the climate tech space.
Ed Jervis is the CEO at Inclusion Crowd and the founder of the Inclusion Think Tank. He has worked with an array of businesses ranging from complex multinational organisations through to non-profit and startups.
He works with leaders to coach them in creating company cultures that thrive and offer team members psychological safety. He also guides them to form internal staff groups, attract and retain diverse talent, and helps clients to foster meaningful connections with their stakeholders.
During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.
I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.
1:21 - Do we need to discuss inclusion more and not place all focus on diversity?
5:19 - People are talking about DE&I but not always executing. Where is the disconnect?
11:48 - Is it ever too early to start thinking about DE&I? e.g. when it’s just the founders.
15:04 - A good place to start is telling your own story and experiences with DE&I and modelling what you want to see.
18:07 - How do you create a psychologically safe environment?
21:44 - Don’t forget to look at things through a commercial lens sometimes to create connections
26:39 - Does AI have a place in increasing diversity in recruitment when it comes to vetting and screening?
32:52 - How can people communicate better right from the start at the job ad?
37:13 - How do you maintain DE&I as the team grows and make sure you don’t lose sight of it in the chaos of growth?
41:55 - Are regular 1:1s or surveys worth it as a way to assess your culture and how people feel working in your company?
47:40 - What resources would you recommend for people to learn more about DE&I?
50:35 - How do identify that there even is a problem? How can you expand your mindset to recognise the problem to start with?
So, whether you’re a founder starting to scaling your team, a hiring manager looking for top talent, or simply curious about how diverse teams are tackling the planet’s most pressing challenges, this series is for you.
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During this series, we’ll be discussing the art of building strong, high-performing teams to give your startup the best foundation possible.
I’ll be speaking to industry experts about inclusion, employer branding and establishing culture, plus I’ll be hearing both the VC and founder viewpoints and experiences when it comes to finding and supporting the best talent.
With fundraising being so crucial to any startup, it’s important to understand how VCs see talent and assess it not only when making their investment but also beyond, when things start to scale.
We’re starting this series with Heidi Lindvall, a general partner and investor at Pale Blue Dot. Over her career, she has herself built SaaS and B2B companies, and has run two accelerators helping founders to scale. Now the other side of the table, she focuses on pre-seed and seed startup investments.
Pale Blue Dot is a seed-stage climate tech VC that backs visionary founders, building future-shaping businesses.
2:06 - Heidi’s experience of building teams as a previous founder.
4:40 - Were there any advisors or resources you used to learn how to pull a team together?
10:55 - How to handle realising you’ve made the wrong hire.
14:46 - Would you advise working with a business coach or advisors when first starting out?
18:16 - Why did you move into accelerators?
22:18 - What stage did you take people into the accelerators?
23:11 - What were the common themes that you saw companies struggle with from a team and hiring perspective?
25:00 - How can founders assess whether someone is a good fit for a startup?
29:02 - Competing on salary at early-stage companies.
31:58 - What would your advice be around offering equity at early stages?
33:36 - From a VC perspective, how important is the team when assessing an investment?
37:28 - How important is the advisory board and can that offset gaps in a founding team when you’re assessing an investment?
41:24 - Where have you seen team building and hiring done well in your portfolio at Pale Blue Dot?
44:49 - Should you always be recruiting and building a talent pipeline?
47:16 - How involved do you get in hiring with your portfolio companies?
48:49 - Do you see hiring challenges differ between locations or are they fairly universal?
50:08 - What is one final key piece of advice you would give founders when it comes to hiring?
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For the final episode of series six, was joined by Pippa Gawley, Founding Partner at Zero Carbon. They are investors in early-stage companies that are on a mission to fix climate change through deep science innovation. They look for hard-tech solutions that have the potential to make half gigaton-level reductions of CO2e at scale; and have vision-aligned, ambitious teams to go with them.
Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.
We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.
2:04 - How did you come to investing from engineering?
7:48 - What was the state of the ecosystem in climate tech and investment in the UK when you started out?
10:47 - What differences have you noticed between the US and the UK. Given that you’ve lived in both places?
13:04 - What is your investment thesis and has it changed over time?
14:29 - How do you assess a startup’s potential impact when they are still so early-stage?
18:04 - Is there a timescale that you expect companies to be able to prove their impact?
19:36 - What common threads do you see across your portfolio companies that made them a good investment proposition and made them successful?
22:41 - Do you support companies with building out their team to ensure they have the skillset needed to progress?
24:41 - What key challenges do you see deep tech companies face?
27:55 - Do you feel the needed infrastructure is there to take these companies beyond seed-stage?
30:29 - Is there more that corporates could or should be doing to engage at early-stage?
31:55 - What do you think prohibits corporates from getting involved?
36:37 - What solutions within deep tech climate are most exciting to you and where do you see big potential?
39:18 - How to contact Pippa and Zero Carbon Capital.
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For the penultimate episode of series six, I was joined by Katya Constant, the Head of The Climate Brick. The Climate Brick is an initiative set up by EQT Ventures and Contrarian Ventures to accelerate the at-scale deployment of climate tech by introducing the "missing manual" (a playbook for scaling and funding seven different climate tech archetypes based on data from over 3,000 companies) and uniting the ecosystem through building the largest cross-stakeholder community.
Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.
We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.
Video versions of this and previous episodes are available here.
https://climatebrick.com/
1:48 - Katya’s journey from investment banking through to climate and career coaching
9:51 - What themes have you seen across the successful businesses you’ve been involved with, that has separated them from those that haven’t survived?
15:01 - What was important to you from an investor perspective when you were at Systemiq?
19:02 - What do you see as being the key financial challenges that deep tech companies face?
23:19 - What advice would you offer to founders in the early stages, to help them de-risk things and show it to investors.
25:49 - When do you think a startup should think about having a CFO in place either permanently or fractionally?
28:37 - What is the Climate Brick?
33:47 - What were your key learnings from doing research for the Climate Brick?
35:42 - Do you find that corporates are as keen to collaborate as the rest of the investment community?
37:19 - Are there certain industries or locations where communication across the capital stack is better and climate could learn from?
38:28 - What led you to move into coaching founders and where do you add value?
42:08 - Do you work with individuals or with founding teams?
43:17 - What common challenges do you see founders face when you’re coaching, are there recurring themes?
47:08 - What advice would you give early-stage founders around what to start thinking about and practising now, that will help them face those challenges in the future?
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- Visa fler
