Planeteer News Reaction, Thought Leadership in CT, & Leveraging Reputation w/ Somil Aggarwal

Today Somil (@somil_agg) and Silas (@silasmahner) have a discussion reacting to the news about Planeteer and more broadly on the topic of thought leaders and ClimateTech.

We welcome Somil as a guest that you are likely to see more frequently as we intend to do more content like this. So, please let us know if you enjoy it.

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Other episodes you might enjoy:
**Most Recent Episode: Using Blockchain to Verify Carbon Offsets | Blockchain & Climate Are Compatible w/ Alan Ransil (Filecoin Green)
**Similar Topic: How to Raise Money for your ClimateTech Startup w/ Tommy Leep, founder of Jetstream VC
**Something Totally Different: #53 - Incubating Early Stage CleanTech Companies - Jason Ethier of Greentown Labs

Chapters

• 0:00 Discussing Planetier and CleanTech Thought Leadership
• 3:57 Sophie Perdum Launches Planetier VC Fund
• 12:39 Climate Investing Reputation and Network Building
• 18:49 Investing in Climate Tech
• 23:39 Investing in Climate
• 31:00 Building Reputation in Climate Tech
• 38:27 Excitement Over Brand-Building News

Transcript

Somil Aggarwal: 0:00

I think that's one of the main value as people get from what Sophie has built and what they're doing over there, and I think it really shows, i think, respect for thought leadership in the space And I think it's even though CleanTech 1.0 has happened and there's now a resurgence of VC funds in the space, it's still a space that's welcoming new thought leaders and has, i think, a lot of space for people to get their thoughts out there and help, sort of, the next generation of startups.

Silas Mahner: 0:30

Welcome back to the CleanTechies podcast, where we interview ClimatTech founders and VCs to discuss all things building and investing to solve the biggest challenge of our generation climate change. Today, we have a slightly different episode, since we are speaking with Somil Aggarwal. Somil is someone I met recently who is a VC and also writes a newsletter called SIP, or SIP, on social impact and product. We decided last minute, at the end of last week, to record an episode because of the news with Planetier. For those unfamiliar, Planeteer is a newly announced ClimatTech venture fund led by Sophie Purdom, one of the co-founders of the CTVC newsletter, which has become synonymous with the ClimatTech space. It's less of an interview and more of a discussion, so let us know what you think, as we are hoping to do more of these in the future. We're live. How's it going, Somil?

Somil Aggarwal: 1:36

Doing well. How are you?

Silas Mahner: 1:39

Yeah, man, it's been a very stressful week. Not going to lie, it's been a hell of a week. But hey, listen, i'm glad to be jumping on to record with you, man, this is exciting.

Somil Aggarwal: 1:48

No better way. I'd rather spend a Friday night, that's for sure.

Silas Mahner: 1:51

Yeah, that's probably not. A lot of people in New York would like to spend their Friday night on a podcast instead of out, you know, partying or something. Everybody I meet they're always like, oh man, you know, people love New York because they love the party. I'm like, well, you know, I'm really not a party person and I love it here. Yes, I think it depends on who you are right, But anyways, man, so obviously we've got a new guest today. Everybody want to introduce Somil, So I guess want to just give us a quick background on yourself. I'm really keen to have you, have you, part of this, I guess, from my side initially, for everybody listening. We connected a couple of weeks ago I think what is it? five, five, six weeks ago initially, Yeah, And just had a quick chat and I was like man, this guy really likes, likes, climate tech. He seems like he knows what he's talking about. He's also a content creator. So I said, why don't we collaborate a little bit? So tell us a bit about yourself for everybody.

Somil Aggarwal: 2:40

Yeah, thanks so much for the introduction man Super excited. I've been a fan of the Queen Tuggy's podcast for some time, so it's a bit surreal. But, like you said, i'm a content creator myself, so this is a lot of fun for me. Yeah, i run a newsletter called SIP, which is basically stands for Social Impact and Product, and I can sort of tie that into my background a little bit. So I have a background in venture capital.

Somil Aggarwal: 3:01

I was a founder myself in AgTech And I have a product management experience, especially related to social impact. A lot of my work today has been focused on AgTech, and the company that I founded was based on building a data tracking tool for small farmers. I've spoken at the FAO for the work that I did in Kenya observing agriculture and agricultural innovation, and I think the biggest thing about AgTech for me was that it was so close to intertwined with the environment. So resource conservation, the climate pollution I just couldn't escape saying it And I don't mean to make it sound like that. I was very happy to have been so tied into the earth and just everything that was going on. Once I sort of moved on from that chapter, i realized how much I wanted to stay engaged with it. So I started SIP as a way to sort of leverage my work in venture capital now leverage that experience as a founder, as a venture capitalist, and relate it to issues and climates, sustainability and social impact.

Somil Aggarwal: 3:57

For me, i'm super passionate about how they all interact. I think the biggest thing that I think I see in climate between the intersection of these three fields is the de-risking of the solutions. So, whether it's funding these solutions from the point of venture capitalists, building the solutions from the point of a founder, or building the underlying technology from the point of a researcher or a policy maker and things like that, everyone's trying to build ways and put information together that'll help de-risk climate solutions and help them scale, and so I'm super happy to be talking about that with you today. And I just want to mention that I was also born on Earth Day, so it's basically an unspoken rule that this had to happen.

Silas Mahner: 4:34

I think Yeah, it was written. It was written into all of the stars, mate. Hey there. Quick break to remind any founders or VCs listening. If you are looking for deal flow, seeking to raise funding, looking for partners to help service your needs, or perhaps you're looking for corporate investment partners, feel free to reach out to us through our Slack channel, which can be found in the description, Because we meet a lot of people in this space. we set aside time each week to make introductions to the various people that we encounter. This is something we do free of charge in order to help these incredible companies solving climate change to scale. Looking forward to hearing from you in the Slack channel. I'm kind of curious. I don't remember if we've talked about this before or not, but did you start SIP after you started at VC or before?

Somil Aggarwal: 5:18

Essentially same time. I think it coincided with the next chapter in my life after I finished some of those other projects that I talked about, So I would say same time.

Silas Mahner: 5:28

Yeah, ok, awesome. Yeah, obviously, we probably could talk about this a little bit today, specifically on the top of where I mentioned, but I think content is really, really important, not just from the perspective that you get to bring people in, but it's also helpful to basically clear your thoughts. I'm the kind of person who I did this one podcast before this to really demonstrate that I can make a professional podcast, because my podcasts before that were me just chatting with friends and getting to know them. I just wanted to break the barrier of doing it, and then I realized that in order to do a more professional podcast, it required a little bit more thought and going through what is in your mind and getting it out. I am not somebody who is good at putting it on paper. I'm usually good at figuring out what I think through talking to people, so that's why I love it. But let's introduce our topic today. So the reason why we jumped on kind of last minute here is because I'm not a professional podcast. Something that to me seems like a very big topic and a kind of like a big piece of news in the climate tech VC space personally, and that is because Planetier was launched today. So for those people who are at all involved in the space. You probably know Climate Tech VC, the newsletter, so I just kind of give a bit of background. I This is how it relates to me personally So I joined my company next wave, working on renewables recruitment, and I'm started that in March 2020 and I knew nothing about renewables and nothing about clean tech.

Silas Mahner: 7:03

All I remember at the beginning was Talking about how I was interested in building some kind of like accelerator in the future and I thought like, oh, you probably would like the clean tech stuff, right, that's, you know, that's more, that's more like a startup, right, it's not the energy side of things. And, yes, they did call it clean tech at the time. It wasn't called climate tech, yeah, and so I think it was probably, you know, a couple months later, obviously, the pandemic hit. So there's a lot of like confusion of what's going on in life in general. But then I think, once I found my footing, i was like, okay, now, long term, my goal is to get into into clean tech. So what are the resources out there?

Silas Mahner: 7:38

and I'm pretty sure I found the the newsletter, climate tech VC, probably in June or July of that year, 2020, and I believe it was started in April 2020, right, so I started by Kim zoo and Sophie perdom, and I don't know the exact details of the background, but I'm just fascinated by this. They started this newsletter. It's grown to over 50,000 subscribers and I would say it's become one of the leading kind of authorities, in my opinion, on Where you go to find out what's happening with funding. Obviously, there are sources that you can you can find this thing from, but for me, it's been extremely valuable in my understanding of the landscape And it's something that I've been able to refer to other founders countless times.

Silas Mahner: 8:20

They're like hey, you know, i'm looking to get into VC, or I'm looking to get in, or sorry, i'm looking to raise, or I'm looking to get into climate, and I can tell them you know, go, look at this list, there's all these companies. If you go through there, you'll find the portfolio companies that they invest in and you'll find jobs, right. So there's so many things that this, this newsletter, really kind of turned into, and Now Sophie has launched her own fund, which I think is just crazy about basically a three-year, essentially a three-year timeline from becoming kind of somebody who talks about the space being able to launch her own VC. So that's why we're here to talk today, just kind of react to it. So I'm gonna just toss it up over to you What are your kind of initial thoughts when you, when you saw this?

Somil Aggarwal: 8:59

Yeah, you know, fantastic backdrop. I think this is just a testament to what passion about a space can do, right? I think when you go through the CTVC resources and platform and everything, it's clear that you know there are a lot of newsletters and things out there that give you sort of disparate information. So they might track exits, they might try to deal flow, but they don't necessarily give you the full picture, right. So, as much as you can use them in one platform, it's not a single source of truth, right, and I don't know if they've really used this as branding, but I think they can.

Somil Aggarwal: 9:31

You know, i think that's one of the main value as people get from what Sophie has built and what they're doing over there, and I think it really shows, i think, respect for thought leadership in the space. And I think it's even though you know, you know clean tech 1.0 has happened and and sort of there's now a Resurgence of VC funds in the space. It's still a space that's welcoming new thought leaders and has, i think, a lot of space for people to Get their thoughts out there and help, sort of, the next generation of startups. I think CTVC sort of solidified themselves as that thought leader and their ability to raise capital. On top of that. You know they brought in a pretty prestigious person which I think we'll talk about, but their ability to use that and parlay that into into raising capital. You know it's not easy. The thing that I really want to bring up about that is they raise capital in this environment, right Yeah, and I want to bring up one point about that.

Somil Aggarwal: 10:23

So there's a report that was published about 2022 that said by carbon equity. That said that venture capital A funding had decreased by 35%, but climate tech had actually increased by about 3%. So I think we should set the backdrop here by saying that's not like climate tech really decreased. But you know, if it wasn't, if it wasn't for what happened and the market downturn, it might have been a lot more. But I think it shows that people trust thought leadership and people trust people who have been working in this space for some time And, you know, maybe it's a bit inspirational It just shows that it's really, i think, the right, right space and the right time to be here, because, while everyone else is sort of like Scrammling, there's, you know, potentially one of the most visible people in the space. Just raise a new fund and show the ability to raise capital around issues and climate.

Silas Mahner: 11:09

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Silas Mahner: 11:33

Yeah, there's a couple things that I mean. The first, the last point about her being a visuals person in space like it is very true. I think I don't know if we're exaggerating her reach, but to me, i've never bumped into anybody who is in a VC role, who's in climate, who doesn't know about this. Right, i've bumped into founders who don't know about this yet, but it's usually because they just started right or they're coming from some kind of other you know other traditional Background and then they're getting into climate and then they're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I usually send them that and if they haven't seen it, they message me back like an hour later like, oh my gosh, this is the best thing since sliced bread, like they love it right. So there's that, that aspect. I think it's interesting.

Silas Mahner: 12:16

And you brought up the point about The raising in this environment. Right, it's, it's. It's June. It's June now. Right, yeah, it's June now.

Silas Mahner: 12:25

And that means that she definitely had to raise this during, like this difficult time, right, and we don't know necessarily if they they close the whole fund, because there's not total details there, or if they just made a small close in order to announce it right, which could could been a nice strategy possibly. I don't know, i don't know what her thoughts are there, but I just think it's really fascinating like you go from being a content creator essentially and it's not like she didn't have some Kind of background in it but from being a content creator to you basically building something that can be really, really good. And it's brilliant because now, being like one of the most trusted sources, or at least something that everybody reads every single week, right Now, her deal flow is going to be so easy to get the deals right. Yes, she'll have to sort through them, but at least she'll have the deals coming, and I think that can be difficult for a lot of the VCs in some cases.

Somil Aggarwal: 13:18

Yeah, i think you brought something up that is really important. I think at the early stage, which is the fund that she's built in the state that she's targeting, is pre-Z and C right, and I think that's definitely pre-product market fit, pre-growth in a way. So I think there's real value that she's going to be able to provide from the network and the community that she's been able to build right, and this is sort of the big news in this space that I think are special inspirations to us. But I think this is just to go to the climate investing space as a whole, which is that this translates to regular investing. But I think you maybe be seeing a premium on this right With them being able to do this, which is of the power of networks that you're able to create.

Somil Aggarwal: 14:00

A lot of these industries I wouldn't call them nascent, but they're not tried and true 30, 40, 50 year old industries at this point, right, and with the advent of AI and other technologies, i don't necessarily think we're going to touch climate as much as they might touch, you know, like productivity tools, but you're still going to see a lot of people scrambling to find mentors and people to sit on board seats and people to step in as advisors, who have gone through the cycles of building and climate, producing and climate and doing this research right.

Silas Mahner: 14:31

I think that's going to be really, really important and I wouldn't be surprised if that went into why she was able to raise capital in the first place, yeah, and I just I think it also speaks broadly to, i mean, this is probably I would consider this and maybe one of the highest levels quote unquote of basically building reputation and going into the space. Right, building reputation for knowing something and then leveraging that reputation to make to raise it fun, right, that's probably one of the most difficult things, because you can build a reputation in other spaces as well and then raise money for your company. But what I want to point out is, like, in the past two and a half years of doing this podcast, i have bumped into a lot of people who two and a half years ago, knew nothing about the space, right, but they just read everything and they decided, hey, i'm going to, i'm going to learn about this, or maybe they already knew about it and they just started to get into the startup world. But they became experts by reading, by being involved by, you know, participating in all the communities and commenting and usually in some form or another, making content, and then they can become kind of the thought leaders of the space, and I've seen that happen for some people in less than 12 months, right, i think that it's really, to me as an opportunistic person. There's a lot of people out there who are constantly asking me like how do I get a job in climate? And I just think that if you're somebody who thinks, especially for people who have already, like, lived half their career, who have some type of expertise, spend time noodling on the things that you think you can bring to the table, because, especially if you were in a non-climate like non-eco kind of job or career, you probably have a lot of insight that you can bring to the table to build some company, to solve a solution or solve a problem in that space. So I would just kind of encourage people that it's kind of like the Wild West in terms of opportunities out there. It just seems difficult sometimes because there's a lot of science words I get thrown around.

Silas Mahner: 16:27

Hey there, thanks for listening to this episode. If you made it this far, it's likely that you're enjoying the show. So I wanted to ask your help. If you're enjoying it, please give us a review on Apple Podcasts and share with somebody in the same industry who might find this interesting. And if you're interested in getting summaries of these episodes, go subscribe to our newsletter that comes out on LinkedIn, and Substack Links can be found in the description. Thanks for your help in growing through each of this show.

Somil Aggarwal: 16:49

Yeah, I'll add to that. And then I want to throw a question at you. I feel like you haven't given up opinions yet. So one of the when I've talked to the founders, the operators, the experts that I have had on set, one of the things they talk about, especially as the evolution of climate, is that climate is not an industry. It's. It is basically every industry. Every industry is going to have to interact and adapt to issues in climate at some point or another. And I think that's touching what you're saying, which is that at some point, when every industry, you know whether it's insurance and having to integrate different climate factors we just saw in California right, insurers are now refusing new claims due to concerns about climate. Right, you go into construction industry, FinTech, with different types of carbon, market financing and things like that. There's going to be a huge premium on just leveraging your existing knowledge and a demand to adapt that to new issues in climate. I mean, you can see the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act. There's now a huge momentum behind government funding and government support to catalyze and change these industries, And I think that you know just seconds the point that you made.

Somil Aggarwal: 17:56

One thing I kind of want to throw to you in the release is that they talked about VC being sort of a crowded space and now, this being in the advent of her launch, you need to differentiate yourself as a venture capitalist to a founder beyond the term sheet, right, And I think this is something that you know VCs in San Francisco definitely understand very, very well, which is you can't just offer the term sheet in capital. There has to be something special about you, right? I'm wondering, in your experience talking to founders and talking to other venture capitalists right throughout your journey, What do you think people have to offer and, sort of how, what are people like? what do we want most from an investing or founding perspective in this day and age?

Silas Mahner: 18:38

Yeah, i mean I think that I've talked to a lot of people who will send me their decks and I like try to give them critiques when I have time And there's a lot of people who are just very frustrated because they, they, there's there's kind of two camps, i would say. There's people who want to make an impact and they just see it through their own lens, like, oh, my technology, my, you know, my idea is so great, i just need money to go build it. It's like, okay, we get that, but you got to go build something that shows traction, right. And I think that it's difficult because for some climate is, they're not familiar with the traditional venture space, right, there's a lot of people entering out who have no clue how, like, traditional startup land works, right, they're not familiar with the, the ecosystem, and so they don't really get the the process of kind of iterating and getting traction and doing an MVP, etc. It can be very difficult for them in some cases. So, on one hand, you've got people who are they really, in essence, they're in need of feedback and somebody to break through to them and say, hey, listen, just so you know, like there's nothing against you, you just need to be there And so, just so you know against you, you just need to build kind of baby steps to get that traction, to demonstrate it, especially if it's a, especially if it's science right, if it's science, you need to have certain demonstrations around your technology. So that's, on one hand, they have people who have pretty good technology, they understand the landscape and what they're looking for from investors is usually an investor that can help them with the next step. So there's, i would say there's plenty.

Silas Mahner: 20:12

I say that very hesitantly. There's plenty of VCs out there, especially in the early stage, for now, their funds will dry up at some point, but the moment there's, i think there's enough dry powder to make it work from the majority of the climate tech startups out there that actually have legs And what they're looking for are people who have kind of that, their goggles on for the next round, and I think that they could use that, that assistance from the commercial perspective. I had somebody on this this will probably come out before that episode comes on, but I had a returning guest in the VC space talk about how they always make sure, and I thought this was fascinating. They always make sure that the companies that they choose to invest in can be turned into a regular venture, backable business, meaning, even if there are no climate tech VCs at the series A and B and C rounds, they will still be able to get investment.

Silas Mahner: 21:10

And I think that's something that it's very difficult because you've got a lot of convolution happening, with hardware and software kind of being in the same pools in many cases, when you can obviously invest venture dollars in hardware. It's difficult. There's a lot of difficulties and differentiations there, but when you mix these sometimes you're gonna have difficulties on the exit path. Right, as you get further along. You've proven your pilot, you're getting things going. You're gonna need investors who are at a high level in terms of what round they invest in, how much money they invest, and part of me wants to believe yeah, for sure, there will be companies that come to fill that gap. However, there may not be for the early companies, right, it might take a while to raise those larger funds, so I don't know. I hope that answers the question. I think that those are the two things that really come to mind.

Somil Aggarwal: 22:02

Yeah, i'll sort of I love to dive into that second part, which is essentially the returns on your investment in climate, right, i think that's a lot of the reason why we saw CleanTech 1.0, turn into 1.0 and not what it is today, right, which is, i think the stat was about 10% of only 10% of returns. Only 10% of investments returned, right, and I think there's interesting data point that I want to put in front of you and sort of get your feedback on as well. Actually, funny enough, ctbc put out a graphic that had, in terms of exits, 60% were at the corporate level, right, and if you look even deeper, only 6% of Climate Tech companies IPO'd, right, i think that received venture funding And, as a quick background for investing, ipoing is sort of the gold standard adventure, right, and so your ability to see a company IPO, for example, in some of the work that I do, if a company is IPO'd in a space just today, actually, i was talking to a company who came to us basically because of the example that an IPO had set, right, and so, once you see because that information also goes public, right, once a company goes through IPO and things like that, so it becomes a huge inspiration for the rest of the space, right? I think, with this much acquisition activity, which is much M&A and corporations sort of being the buyers, i think it poses an interesting question that it's fantastic to see another stage at the pre-seed and sea level, but you meant kind of parlaying the question that you brought up, which is, what does the later stage look like?

Somil Aggarwal: 23:39

I was speaking with I'll give a quick shout out to Fooja. I had spoke to her earlier today, fooja Balanchand. She's the head of the venture launchpad of Carbon 13, a venture launchpad based in Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and she was talking about in her experience that a lot of people are thinking about the merger and acquisition, the corporate acquisition route for their startups, and while that's fantastic, i think that puts into question, in this wave of climate, tech companies. We're probably gonna see better returns, right, overall, compared to what CleanTech 1.0 was, but is it going to be enough to keep this industry going? Right, because you may not see as many ITOs and you may not see a lot of the funds return on that money, and so I would say a lot of funds have started since 2020, right, if you've invested your capital, you're deploying it over, let's say, five years, and then you expect your returns within seven to 10 years.

Somil Aggarwal: 24:33

That puts us at about the late 2020. So you're gonna start seeing a big question of like, okay, what happened to those investments in climate right, is this an industry that we can invest in? I will say that a lot of the legislation towards the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, bloody things put in place the potential for buyers in this space, and I think that's an incredible move forward. But I think it's a question that we have to ask ourselves, which is where are the returns gonna come from And how can we prepare founders to try and gear themselves to basically make a climate a profitable venture business?

Silas Mahner: 25:08

Yeah, i mean, i guess my opinion is that I just think there needs to be a certain maturity reached with the way founders grow their businesses and seeking to get to profitability quicker. I think there's been a couple of examples of IPOs in climate that went really poorly. I won't mention the ones I'm thinking of. I don't want to throw them under the bus, but they basically sought to do it as a funding mechanism rather than as a good outcome, because they weren't ready for it, they weren't profitable at all, and then, as a result, investors were like listen, we don't have confidence in your stock anymore, we're dropping it right. And I think it's difficult from that perspective that you have to get to a point where you at least have the fundamentals ready to go to the IPO process. I also do believe that in a lot of cases, a lot of the buyers of this technology that are actually purchasing the companies, there could be a path where, depending on how they look at it and I'd be really keen to get your thoughts on this too, but it's depending on how they look at it rather than acquiring it, maybe just taking a stake in around and bringing some of their friends along, because some of these are very big industries that are not exactly there's not a lot of players right. Some of these are kind of like, for example, the oil and gas space buys a lot of technology to try to decarbonize and there's not necessarily that many players in it. So examples like that, where it's a relatively small number of large corporations playing in it, maybe one should try to get their own personal, their own advantage, take a stake in the company and then just invest in it, because if they truly want the outcomes to be good, they should be thinking about how can this go well for them as well. Or they should just have their own R&D labs if they really want that, right. If they don't really want that, just invest in their own R&D. I don't know, maybe there should be a premium or something, but I do see it as a bit of an issue that could happen.

Silas Mahner: 27:07

However, because we have enough time horizon and I think that there's enough, i guess, trepidation around the idea of like, how long should we wait, how long should it be expected to get a return from a hardware company, i think that, because of the kind of convoluted waters there, people will be a little bit more patient, and I also do believe that it's you have to.

Silas Mahner: 27:28

It kind of comes back to the LPs right, will the LPs continue to have confidence in climate? And I would assume the answer is always going to be yes, going forward, because I think that as climate events continue to happen and as they really see, like wow, this is really taking hold across the world. I know that, from a talent perspective, everyone wants to work in climate And I don't think that anybody can deny that, like you find people just like clamoring to get into climate. So I just think that at the end of the day, it's going to be driven by the popular opinion, which is kind of going to drive LPs to a large extent, and that there should be continued funds. But I don't know the path to helping get them making sure this is all successful. I don't know your thoughts there.

Somil Aggarwal: 28:09

Well, look, i think we're probably sitting at a stage where we're seeing the least amount of government involvement in climate that we're going to see moving forward, which is exciting, right. So I think, in terms of the question about buyers and capital moving forward, i think a lot will change right. And to your point about oil and gas, maybe there'll be increased support for other players to get more competitive in the space, with subsidies that are going in towards energy and decarbonization. A lot of those haven't really been deployed and it's not super clear how they will be deployed, right, and so I think that's definitely going to be something worth watching.

Somil Aggarwal: 28:44

One thing that I also want to bring back as a topic is the importance of strategic investors right In the early stages of a company, right, and I think what the real takeaway from that is is, with the advent of something like CTVC as a fund, now as plantier right, pressure in terms of founders and VCs who are sort of all on the same team to build an ecosystem and change the ecosystem, to encourage strategic, strategic investments earlier on in companies' life cycles, right, and I'll admit that I don't know the data points on this, so in case that's a burgeoning trend, then fantastic, we're already on the path there, right. But I think, as you see in a lot of other industries, strategic investors will basically at the very early stage, at the angel stage, first institutional round around. Then they'll get involved and they're put in money to fund a company that will build a solution that they can acquire down the road, right. And so I don't necessarily know myself whether that's not happening, but I think what you were talking about, i think definitely one of the things, especially from a thought leadership point of view and I do want to get your thoughts on that having strategic enter companies earlier on sort of gives you access to that knowledge base, right, the knowledge of a corporation or whoever your advisor is on your team, from that investment to be able to help you figure out what's the most profitable way to get this to scale That's in favor of your company, and also relationship that could lead to an acquisition or lead to a partnership or whatever have it.

Somil Aggarwal: 30:19

But I do want to bring up a point here, which is making yourself visible, right, and making yourself known, so you yourself as somebody who's been in this space, and if we're talking about somebody who's transitioned from thought leadership to venture side, let's start with the thought leadership right, which is something you're super knowledgeable about. How do you think that founders can look at this? Of course, founders not gonna go from a founder doing nothing to a venture capital right, but I think it shows the premium on building your own brand and building your own knowledge base. What's your advice, given like how exciting of a time it is to be knowledgeable in this space to founders who want to become known for the cool work that they're doing and all the knowledge that they have?

Silas Mahner: 31:00

I mean, i think that there's a lot of people who I look up to in this space, one in particular that really kind of, i think, started a lot of things with Tom Rand from ArcTurn. I think he's a really good example of somebody who just demonstrated and was very early on in climate VC to say, like, listen, this is not just about like solving, this is not just about solving a climate crisis. There also has to be, it has to make money, otherwise you're never gonna make it happen. So I think that he's an example of somebody who started early on in this space. But there's a lot of ways you can do it And I do think it's important to do it. How you do it if you're trying to build a company I don't know the exact answer to that question. I always tell people start a podcast because you can attract the similar minded type of people, but I don't necessarily know if that's the best case scenario for a lot of people, and some people can be intimidated by it sometimes, whereas like, for example, i'm intimidated more by writing than I am podcasting. So I would say, probably writing about a specific topic and getting really deep into it If you wanna build a reputation for something. We talked about it earlier. There are many, many potential deep verticals in climate And most of the content out there there's a lot of climate podcasts. Now they're largely from what I've seen And I don't listen religiously to all of them, but from what I've seen they're largely theoretical and touching the surface. They don't necessarily have like one super deep topic area. There's a couple like that, but I think that if you can just pick your topic area and just start writing about it, especially through sub-stack or becoming an influencer on LinkedIn, about these things, like just putting yourself out there and becoming an expert in the space by reading, by talking to people and by producing content it's very hard to argue against it.

Silas Mahner: 32:56

Let's put it this way I, when I first started learning about ESG, i wanted to make sure I had a basic understanding. So what I did was I happened to be in this program which is not called TAPTIV. It's kind of like it was called my MBA at one point. It's called TAPTIV. Now My friend of mine started this thing and he was like basically encouraging people to write. Right, you're going to read something and you're forced to put out a piece And, as a result, you kind of formalize it, which is that level of knowledge right? Can you? can you teach it? If you can teach it to some extent, then you're you've quote unquote mastered it. I'm not going to say I've mastered ESG, so just a disclaimer there. But point is I learned a lot about it. I put out some pieces and I like made them public on my LinkedIn And I would have people reaching out assuming that I was like a deep expert in it, because there wasn't that many people doing that.

Silas Mahner: 33:41

Right, there was other people doing that who were far, far more capable and knowledgeable than me, but it still got me in the room and have conversations that I wouldn't have had previously. So I don't know if that answers the question. I don't know how, like a specific guideline on how to do it. I do think it's important. But I think it's important to be specific, because if you're specific, yes, it might seem like you know pulling teeth at the beginning to get listeners or readers, but if you are specific enough, you will find the right people When they're looking for it, when the time comes, when some venture capitalist has like an idea like oh man, we need to find something, we need to find a company in this space to invest in, you need to be findable And it needs to look like holy crap. This person is like an inch wide and a mile deep on this topic. We should definitely talk to them.

Somil Aggarwal: 34:27

Yeah, you know just sort of second to your point one of the people that I really look up doing this space. He's been an angel investor for 10 years And he goes as far as to be active in the research space and the research reports, so you can imagine like that's a real investment in terms of being visible, right. But I think it's the same way where he's very keen on making sure that he's attached to the writing that he does And he's seen the ROI in terms of it's been 10 years now. Right, it's not a quick process, although, you know, three years first CTVC maybe is some inspiration for it to be quicker, right, i think there's definitely examples of people who have cultivated that leadership over time, just for the sake of visibility, right?

Somil Aggarwal: 35:07

So, even if I think you're having questions and you know I'd love to take, you know, sif and you know the Clean Techies Podcast is pretty example. It really gives a platform for you to be able to put your opinion in front of other people. And when it comes to funding, you know funding is also a game of confidence, right. How confident are you in the entrepreneur, in the founder, in the rest of the investors that you're investing in? right? How confident are you in to help them scale and de-risk their solution right? And so anything you can do to add to that confidence do And I think this is just a the points you mentioned is a great way to do that.

Silas Mahner: 35:39

Yeah, it's all about reputation. All that really matters is reputation. Right, the people invested in SOFI because she has a reputation and they've been able to follow her work. They kind of maybe feel like they know her, even if they don't right, and I think that that's a lot to be said for it. And it's so much easier because if you try to go I've seen this happen a lot of times with people right now trying to get into climate they have been interested in kind of environmentalism or helping fix the planet for a long time, but until they got laid off they didn't make any action steps.

Silas Mahner: 36:12

Right Now, it's like knocking on a door that's got three bolt locks on it. Right, nobody's home, nobody's gonna open. Right, because there's a lot of people now. But if you had built the network before, it'd be so much easier. Even if you don't have a massive network, if you just know people decently, you've met them, you've provided some type of value, you've demonstrated that you're legitimate, you're not just somebody reaching out seeking a quick win. People respect it and it gets a lot more easy to get introductions to other people and to really just kind of like make your way into the space.

Silas Mahner: 36:46

Climate tech is not exactly a closed space, like it's pretty open and welcoming to people. I have noticed that it seems like a lot of the new joiners they just seem a bit impatient about it, like, oh, you know, like I just want a job, just hire me, i can do it. It's like no, we get it. You're either. You want to help, but there's also a business here and we need to make sure we get the right person right. We need to get the right people at the right time. So I think, just be patient for those people. But yeah, i definitely believe that it's all about reputation. That's what it comes down to.

Somil Aggarwal: 37:17

Yeah, and no pun intended, open door climate is a thing, right. I think that's one of the things that really got me actively talking to people in this space, and I can't tell you how many conversations I've had just as a result of that. So maybe people aren't super willing to throw you a job the first time they meet you, but sometimes you can have a conversation that can lend you a stint on a podcast, right?

Silas Mahner: 37:38

So you never know what can happen.

Silas Mahner: 37:40

Yeah, that's funny. There's this one guy. He's not related to climate at all, but he had started a podcast in BC. I believe he's from the UK, i forget his name, but he started this when he was young, like he was like 13 or 14. And then eventually, i think like seven years later he launched his own fund. So like he's an example, too of somebody who's done this in the traditional space. But all right, man, well, i think this has been pretty great. Any kind of things you wanna close up with?

Somil Aggarwal: 38:07

I just wanna say how much I enjoy this conversation. Man, it's super great to react to news like this. It's incredibly inspiring And, i think, most importantly, like for me, it gave me a real opportunity to go back and forth with you about what this means for the space, and I hope everyone else kind of enjoys digesting how big news. I think we might be fan big fans of this disproportionately, but I think it just means a lot for people who are looking to build a brand in this space that it can really take you far And I'm glad we got to talk about it.

Silas Mahner: 38:38

Yeah, 100%. I think it may be only big news inside of our space, obviously, but it says something. When you see that news posted and then everybody sharing it on their Twitter's, on their LinkedIn, like reposting it and just like talking about the stories of it, like we literally jumped on this to record this right, was like that is something I never do. I was like, hey, man, let's chat tonight, like let's do this, yeah, yeah, because it's good, it's like it's really cool, it's really good news And yeah, maybe Sophie will come on at some point. That'd be great.

Somil Aggarwal: 39:10

That's the hope. We'll see you guys next time.