By Christina Tamer
This blog post was originally published on LinkedIn.
This week I’m in San Francisco and am hoping to find some friends (new and old) among the 1,500+ attendees at SOCAP24. This will be my sixth (seventh?) time attending the conference, and I always enjoy being in a space where so many folks are interested in using finance and investable businesses to solve really big problems. My trip to San Francisco comes after some introspection following Climate Week NYC, where there were a whopping 150,000 participants across the week’s activities (see photo at right). I barely scratched the surface of all that was happening—from discussions on geologic hydrogen to public-private partnerships to environmental justice and education conversations. Despite its size and breadth, there was a common thread among attendees of a commitment to climate action, and in my community of climate technology, a shared understanding of the complex path to market and eventual impact.
I know I’m not alone in thinking about the pathway to market for transformative technologies. Here’s what I’ve gathered and where I’m at:
Liftoff
At one Climate Week event hosted by LabStart, Vanessa Z. Chan spoke about her work at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the agency’s efforts to accelerate clean energy technologies from lab to market to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. DOE has published a series of reports called Pathways to Commercial Liftoff, covering the technology and commercial development pathways for clean energy technologies, including a common fact base on key challenges and the insights of the private sector that are required to make these technologies adoptable. DOE recognizes that advancing technology readiness levels (TRLs) alone aren’t enough to reach our net-zero goals and that adoption readiness and commercial milestones are critical for successful uptake and realized outcomes; it outlines what it’s calling the “Adoption Readiness Levels (ARL) Framework.” Leveling up from research and development to demonstration and, ultimately, to deployment presents a series of hurdles, both tactically and strategically, for an innovator to overcome. This is not exclusive to DOE, but I love that this technical agency is embracing a framework that goes beyond TRLs alone. Looking at some of DOE’s priority areas, like offshore wind, clean hydrogen, and carbon management, it’s clear there is a significant amount of overlap with other federal agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), ARPA-E, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This makes a shared understanding of challenges and metrics to track progress even more important, and that includes progress outside the lab.
These concepts hold up in the way we work at VentureWell—a combination of public and private sector support plus the shared strengths of partners enable innovators to secure and use resources in the most effective ways possible. Innovators often underestimate the differences in resources required to actually achieve successful deployment. On our team, the Ventures team, we frequently talk about the difference between a business model canvas on paper and in real life execution as captured on a profit and loss statement. We’re often working with enthusiastic founders who are new to entrepreneurship, but who carry the serious burden of trying to start a viable business to solve urgent climate challenges, in addition to overcoming technical hurdles, making payroll, closing sales, and a variety of other tasks that must be learned on the job. The funding, the technologies, and the support system all need to come together for viable liftoff.
In Orbit
This year, VentureWell has worked on programs and proposals to support coastal resilience; the intersection of energy and mobility; and technologies enabling the clean energy transition, including energy storage, clean hydrogen, and geothermal. We didn’t do this alone—in each case, we had the opportunity to work on specific climate technology areas in collaboration with partners.
One partner in particular I’d like to call out is Rose Rock Bridge (RRB) and my colleagues there, Kastle Jones, Prutha Atre, and Joanna Jeffries. This past year, we worked with them to select and support 15 startups to connect to the vibrant energy ecosystem in Oklahoma, as they work to support hard-to-abate industries. RRB has unique capabilities to understand the needs and priorities of its energy partners and can source viable technologies to meet those needs. They understand that sourcing alone is not enough; resources, training, education, integration, and, most importantly, time are needed. VentureWell partnered with RRB on training and education, offering a customized curriculum to meet the needs of the innovators developing transformational technologies for the energy industry focused on clean energy sources like geothermal, hydrogen, and methane management. Many of these technologies coming out of academia have a history of federal research funding, especially from DOE and the National Science Foundation.
I can proudly say the program was a success. Led by Tricia Compas-Markman with support from Jaime Wood-Riley and a group of committed investor-mentors (David Clouse, Andrea Course, Julie Drapier, Johannes Dyring, Courtney Radcliffe Gill, Brian Kerns, Kelsey Putman Hughes, Susan Moring, DC Palter, C.J. Whelan), the team supported the 15 startups in building out business models and the foundation that will be required to successfully launch and operate a venture. Four of the startups are receiving $100,000 grants from RRB, and many in the cohort are continuing conversations for pilots and partnerships with the highly engaged network of strategic corporates in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Terra Watts—whose CEO, Kaitlyn Suarez, is an Activate fellow—was one of the four companies in the RRB program to receive $100,000 and the opportunity to engage commercially with one of the energy corporates. As Kaitlyn described in a recent advisory update, the successful demonstration of their wireless power transmission innovation is the opportunity to “watch novel science happen in front of you” and turn skeptics into champions!
Sky’s the Limit
This work doesn’t happen alone and does not know borders. It will take the work of many in order to be able to respond to the climate crisis.
And you need the wins to keep rolling. Funding is exciting, but commercial deals are even better. Outcomes matter, and I’m proud of the accomplishments some of our entrepreneurs have achieved, including:
- Monique M. Dyers, P.E., founder and CEO of EmpowerSun Solutions, won the JEDI Contest of NREL’s Solar Prize competition. My colleagues Sarah Wharmby, Tricia Compas-Markman, Patrick Beattie, Jade Garrett, and Erika Block supported her in this work, coaching her during the Solar Prize and later supporting her as a participant in our Aspire program. One of our mentors, Domineca Neal, is also working with EmpowerSun Solutions to help evaluate her family land for potential solar development. They’re using the EmpowerSun land evaluation tool to assess the land’s solar energy potential, guiding her through the technical process, and making sure all technical and regulatory aspects are covered.
- Elise Strobach, who I worked with several years ago in the early days of AeroShield Materials, recently secured $14.5 million in ARPA-E funding and opened a 30,000-square-foot facility in Waltham, Massachusetts, to scale up production of their energy efficiency technologies for the built environment. While we played a small role in AeroShield’s development in 2019-2020, the company is a great example of taking breakthrough technology from the lab to supplying window and door manufacturers with a transparent aerogel product that increases the energy efficiency of windows. After receiving VentureWell grants, Elise went on to work with lots of respected institutions and organizations, including Activate, Greentown Labs, and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.
All this to say: I’ve had the chance to reflect on our shared responsibility for climate action for a resilient future, and I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation this week at SOCAP with partners, old and new. If you’ll be in town, please reach out!
Christina Tamer is vice president, Ventures, at VentureWell.