Latest / Climate Cowboys / #293 Why the "Green Premium" Is Dead (And What’s Actually Winning Right Now) | Chad Rickaby (ClimateDoor)

Transcript

#293 Why the "Green Premium" Is Dead (And What’s Actually Winning Right Now) | Chad Rickaby (ClimateDoor) · Climate Cowboys

0:00
SPEAKER_00: The label climate might be under attack,
0:02
SPEAKER_00: but the underlying demand for those types of things,
0:05
SPEAKER_00: whether those are electrons or minerals, is most certainly not under attack.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Energy, food, water security, that is all national security, right?
0:12
SPEAKER_00: It's not just about having The most tanks are submarines.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: It's also, you know, can your people eat?
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Three of the main carve-outs in Trump's tariffs are energy, potash, so fertilizer, and minerals.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: All of those, Trump does not want to tariff.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: How do you leverage AI so that they're helping you understand your market better so
0:31
SPEAKER_00: that you can spend more time talking and building relationships?
0:40
SPEAKER_01: The Trump administration is actively punishing anything new or anything with
0:43
SPEAKER_01: the word climate in it.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: But you guys run a firm that helps climate companies grow and succeed.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: How in the world are you guys crushing it enough to buy another company?
0:54
SPEAKER_01: Is that a good enough cold open for you?
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right into it.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, we certainly get asked this question a lot.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: And what we're seeing a lot of is certainly a challenging environment for the sort
1:06
SPEAKER_00: of green premium or the sort of morality around Sustainability,
1:11
SPEAKER_00: that part is certainly under attack and it's been a challenge.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time,
1:17
SPEAKER_00: climate companies are also resource efficiency companies,
1:22
SPEAKER_00: stewarding important energy, critical minerals, agriculture.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: And those are the companies that we work with, right?
1:29
SPEAKER_00: We work across energy, agriculture and critical resources.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: And that's quite frankly, the bedrock of the economy always has been and always will be.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: And as we're seeing the massive build out of data centers and reshoring
1:44
SPEAKER_00: of manufacturing,
1:46
SPEAKER_00: all of these things are underpinned by energy,
1:49
SPEAKER_00: water, and the sort of critical resources that are required to build them out.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: And so what we're really seeing is a lot of growth in that market.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: And the label climate might be under attack,
2:02
SPEAKER_00: but the underlying demand for those types of things,
2:05
SPEAKER_00: whether those are electrons or minerals, Is most certainly not under attack.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's going sky high.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's actually interesting.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: I think if I remember correctly,
2:17
SPEAKER_01: when Trump first got elected,
2:19
SPEAKER_01: Somal and I did a show and we kind of like speculated with
2:22
SPEAKER_01: a couple other guys around how things might actually play out.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Because if,
2:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Trump's administration stated objectives around,
2:30
SPEAKER_01: you know, fighting China and all these different things.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
2:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:34
SPEAKER_01: at the end of the day,
2:35
SPEAKER_01: I think that we're going to still see a lot of investment into the space.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
2:38
SPEAKER_01: that took a while to come true,
2:40
SPEAKER_01: but we just saw,
2:41
SPEAKER_01: I think,
2:42
SPEAKER_01: I want to say it was this last week, well,
2:44
SPEAKER_01: at the time of recording this,
2:46
SPEAKER_01: last week,
2:46
SPEAKER_01: there was a bunch of announcements around the DOE doing loans to lots
2:52
SPEAKER_01: of battery companies, battery-related companies.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: So, obviously, if you want to build drones, you're going to need batteries for that.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: And we'd rather have them, you know, coming from onshored.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Production of battery.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah,
3:03
SPEAKER_01: I think it's definitely interesting to see there's this weird economy and there was
3:07
SPEAKER_01: a weird knee-jerk reaction to anything climate when it didn't really make sense.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't logical at all.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I think it's interesting to see.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: I hope people like that cold open there to get us going.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: But tell us a little bit more about this acquisition that you guys did.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we'll get more into how you guys are helping companies grow and succeed.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: But tell us more about this because that's kind of
3:28
SPEAKER_01: the reason why we ended up getting back in touch to talk.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're very excited to have acquired Standard Demand Partners and they're out
3:38
SPEAKER_00: of New York and they've been laser focused on a very specific part
3:43
SPEAKER_00: of what we do around raising capital for energy companies and project finance
3:49
SPEAKER_00: for renewable energy projects.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Really what they saw in us and what we saw in them is a great sort of cultural fit.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: They've been up to Vancouver many times before and are actually here at the moment
4:04
SPEAKER_00: of recording as well.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: And really what we saw with the acquisition is the opportunity to broaden access
4:13
SPEAKER_00: to capital for our portfolio companies and the projects that we're working on.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think what they saw is the opportunity to Sort of broaden what they're able
4:23
SPEAKER_00: to do with our expertise in commercialization,
4:26
SPEAKER_00: really in the sort of go to market and how do you build the traction that's required
4:32
SPEAKER_00: for a company to raise the capital, right?
4:34
SPEAKER_00: That's often the first step is making sure that somebody actually wants to buy
4:38
SPEAKER_00: the product that you're raising money for.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And that's really where Climate Door has built a strong engine in terms of building
4:46
SPEAKER_00: that go to market strategy.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: And then implementing that, finding the pilots, finding the buyers.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: And on top of that as well,
4:54
SPEAKER_00: the opportunity to really stack capital and leverage our government expertise was
5:00
SPEAKER_00: a really good partnership as well.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a big part of what we do.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: And we firmly believe that to make these companies work,
5:09
SPEAKER_00: you're going to need to stack that capital,
5:12
SPEAKER_00: to blend it across different types of tolerance.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: And so...
5:18
SPEAKER_00: That's what we've been able to do.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: And it's been a great partnership already.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'm really looking forward to the future of what we can do all together.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: So in general, just to then maybe make sure people understand that.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: So you guys have a kind of an engine.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: If people haven't listened to the episode that you did with us before,
5:35
SPEAKER_01: you have an engine that helps clean tech companies.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times at the very early stages,
5:39
SPEAKER_01: Grow at least,
5:40
SPEAKER_01: you know, market signal by getting sales or getting, you know, customer commitments.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: And then that usually turns into you helping them fundraise some,
5:49
SPEAKER_01: you know, equity dollars in the early days.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: And then eventually,
5:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:52
SPEAKER_01: that you maybe run that cycle a few times through the different series,
5:55
SPEAKER_01: but eventually it comes time to have project finance or other grant funding as well.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: And then these other, this, this firm, Standard, sorry, what's the name of the firm again?
6:03
SPEAKER_01: I just remember you guys.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no problem.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Standard Demand Partners is their name.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: So Standard Demand Partners then has a lot more of that expertise on
6:11
SPEAKER_01: the later stage capital kind of project financing side of things.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they've done some growth stage capital as well.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
6:20
SPEAKER_00: certainly moving into bigger check sizes and really sort of building out
6:26
SPEAKER_00: that continuum of capital that our portfolio companies need.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: And certainly in Canada as well,
6:32
SPEAKER_00: where we have Not the same risk capital environment that the United States does.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: It's a challenging environment to raise capital in Canada.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And that's a big reason why there's a lot of government funding that exists to try
6:46
SPEAKER_00: to de-risk that sort of stage of capital.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: But I think there's a lot of opportunities.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing a lot of interest as well,
6:56
SPEAKER_00: even before the acquisition,
6:59
SPEAKER_00: a lot of interest from American companies in Canada,
7:02
SPEAKER_00: as well as an ecosystem to build energy agriculture and critical resource companies.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, that's exactly what it does, sort of broadens our network.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: In particular,
7:12
SPEAKER_00: around some of the later stage financial needs that our portfolio companies have.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: This episode is brought to you by Layman's Terms.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: In cleantech, it's not enough to build something important.
7:23
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7:28
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7:32
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7:33
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7:35
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7:42
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7:49
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7:52
SPEAKER_01: That's ltmediatraining.com.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: That makes a ton of sense.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: I was going to ask more details about the who,
7:57
SPEAKER_01: the what, and the why, but it seems pretty obvious.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: It's just an extension.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: It continues allowing you guys to keep people going down that conveyor belt,
8:04
SPEAKER_01: keeping them growing, and then probably vice versa for them.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: They might have a reputation, and then you can bring in the earlier stage components there.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: What I would like to ask about is,
8:14
SPEAKER_01: especially on the VC side,
8:15
SPEAKER_01: you mentioned that Correct me if I'm wrong,
8:18
SPEAKER_01: but the way I'm looking at it as you're kind of mentioning this is
8:21
SPEAKER_01: that Canada is still a relatively climate forward economy.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: There's probably a lot of potential buyers,
8:26
SPEAKER_01: a lot of business to be done there,
8:27
SPEAKER_01: but not necessarily as many venture capital partners to invest in the companies.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: So having kind of a bridge between more of the,
8:33
SPEAKER_01: let's call it liquid markets on the VC side in America,
8:38
SPEAKER_01: but with the companies that want to,
8:39
SPEAKER_01: maybe because of some of the negative pressure, go and do business in Canada.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: Is that an interesting kind of like partnership?
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Is that part of why things are working well for your relationships and with American firms?
8:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
8:52
SPEAKER_00: I think that there's a few advantages that Canada offers,
8:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:57
SPEAKER_00: certainly,
8:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:59
SPEAKER_00: continues to be a more sort of progressive,
9:01
SPEAKER_00: as you said, climate friendly environment, for sure.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: You know,
9:05
SPEAKER_00: I think the other pieces that,
9:08
SPEAKER_00: you know,
9:08
SPEAKER_00: we already mentioned around some of the government funding and supportive ecosystem
9:12
SPEAKER_00: for R&D and innovation here is attractive.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that a lot of people don't necessarily think of
9:19
SPEAKER_00: as well is just Canada has a lot of sustainability challenges to solve.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: They have the right ecosystem to want to solve those challenges and they have
9:30
SPEAKER_00: the right economic base to create the market for things
9:36
SPEAKER_00: that need clean tech solutions.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: Canada is driven by mining, forestry, agriculture, oil and gas.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: A lot of those
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Sectors are actually seeing a lot of growth right now, right?
9:49
SPEAKER_00: As Carney pushes forward a sort of build Canada agenda,
9:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
9:53
SPEAKER_00: and we're seeing really the rise of the narrative around,
9:57
SPEAKER_00: you know, energy, food, water security, that is all national security, right?
10:01
SPEAKER_00: It's not just about having the most tanks or submarines.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: It's also, you know, can your people eat?
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Can your people have clean water?
10:09
SPEAKER_00: And so as that economy is growing,
10:12
SPEAKER_00: as our natural resource sector grows,
10:13
SPEAKER_00: it provides a lot of opportunities for markets as well.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Especially as Carney tries to balance the importance that
10:22
SPEAKER_00: the Canadian population puts on clean air and sustainability,
10:28
SPEAKER_00: all those pieces with the fact that what drives a major part
10:32
SPEAKER_00: of our economy is fundamentally not the cleanest activity, right?
10:35
SPEAKER_00: And so trying to build out those pieces whilst remaining as sort of sustainable
10:41
SPEAKER_00: as possible creates a lot of opportunity up here.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: And so we are absolutely seeing that.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: We also,
10:48
SPEAKER_00: we run a program that's funded by the European Union where we help,
10:52
SPEAKER_00: where the Canada lead
10:53
SPEAKER_00: for helping European Union based clean tech companies enter Canada.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: We've been running that program for about four years now.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: And we've seen a lot of interest out of Europe as well.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Even just a couple of years ago,
11:06
SPEAKER_00: we would really have to make the case why Canada and Europeans would often say,
11:11
SPEAKER_00: why would I bother?
11:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to go to the States.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: And that narrative has shifted a lot.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: And we're starting to see a lot of interest from Europe into sort of landing into Canada.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Even thinking about access to the North American market through Canada is
11:29
SPEAKER_00: a very interesting opportunity.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of eyeballs on Canada.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Certainly Carney's Davos speech around sort of galvanizing the middle powers has also helped.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing a lot of sort of global interest in Canada.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: So being able to keep up with that demand that we have and make sure
11:50
SPEAKER_00: that we're working with the companies that have the highest chance of success
11:54
SPEAKER_00: in Canada is really the core focus.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: What do you see in terms of going out and doing the fundraising aspect,
12:01
SPEAKER_01: especially at the earlier stages right now?
12:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm curious,
12:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:04
SPEAKER_01: especially,
12:05
SPEAKER_01: maybe you want to give examples of both American firms doing it and Canadian firms,
12:08
SPEAKER_01: but I'm just kind of curious, what are the things that they tend to pitch?
12:11
SPEAKER_01: Are they still going out and finding climate-specific VCs?
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Are they finding just like,
12:14
SPEAKER_01: you know, energy or like, who are the typical kind of investors at this point?
12:19
SPEAKER_01: If there's any kind of themes that you're seeing?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think...
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Broadly across the venture ecosystem, I mean,
12:27
SPEAKER_00: maybe other than some of the AI bubble that we're seeing,
12:31
SPEAKER_00: it's certainly much more of a sort of show me environment than it is
12:36
SPEAKER_00: a tell me environment.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot more priority put on traction,
12:42
SPEAKER_00: even if it's early signals of traction,
12:45
SPEAKER_00: LOIs or commitments from potential buyers down the road is absolutely critical.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And I also think that where we're seeing more traction is where sort of climate tech
13:01
SPEAKER_00: or clean tech is paired with a critical sort of economic or geopolitical driver,
13:08
SPEAKER_00: right?
13:09
SPEAKER_00: As we touched on already,
13:11
SPEAKER_00: where you're thinking about reducing costs for industrial processes,
13:15
SPEAKER_00: which clean tech ultimately is about resource efficiency.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing a lot of demand across industrial decarbonization continues to be
13:25
SPEAKER_00: a strong place for us.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Seeing a lot of interest in food security as well.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: I think that That continues to be something that is,
13:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:36
SPEAKER_00: has risen again to the top of people's radar as things like,
13:42
SPEAKER_00: you know, the cost of fertilizer and supply chain resilience.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: All of those types of things are really top of mind for people.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Energy, generally speaking, is a humongous subject.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
13:56
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the interesting things Sort of developments driven by
14:02
SPEAKER_00: the data center build out,
14:05
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:05
SPEAKER_00: has been a wider understanding of the limitations of electrons on sort
14:12
SPEAKER_00: of economic development that,
14:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:14
SPEAKER_00: if you don't have available power,
14:16
SPEAKER_00: either coming directly from your utility or the ability
14:19
SPEAKER_00: to bring your own power like you can in places like Texas and Alberta,
14:22
SPEAKER_00: then you're fundamentally sort of,
14:26
SPEAKER_00: you're blocked by how much you can grow your economy.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: And so we're seeing a lot of interest from investors in sort of energy efficiency,
14:34
SPEAKER_00: whether that's using AI to manage the flow of electrons,
14:38
SPEAKER_00: modular solutions that allow you to go behind the grid,
14:42
SPEAKER_00: transmission,
14:44
SPEAKER_00: battery storage,
14:45
SPEAKER_00: all of these things that sort of pair nicely with what we've already seen
14:49
SPEAKER_00: from Cleantech 1.0 around the cost coming down exponentially on things like solar
14:55
SPEAKER_00: and wind.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: How do you then sort of build Sort of reliable baseload power off of
15:02
SPEAKER_00: the cheap availability of variable renewable energy.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: And so that's been a big driver as well.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, again,
15:09
SPEAKER_00: whether it's just the data centers,
15:11
SPEAKER_00: which capture a lot of the attention of people for good or bad,
15:17
SPEAKER_00: even things like reshoring manufacturing are, you know, local ability to...
15:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, fulfill our own national defense priorities, right?
15:26
SPEAKER_00: All of those things that's, that's manufacturing that requires electricity.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: And so we're seeing a lot of, a lot of demand in that as well.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of the same story then in a lot of,
15:38
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
15:38
SPEAKER_01: in a lot of regards as the US right now with the focus on shoring,
15:42
SPEAKER_01: same thing is going on there.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: It seems like.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's not only just on shoring or reshoring.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing capabilities, but even in Canada, right?
15:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, mining, those are huge projects.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: We're powering ports.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: We're building new military bases.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: You just saw a couple of weeks ago,
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Carney announced the largest clean energy investment in North American history.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: And so we're really,
16:11
SPEAKER_00: you know,
16:11
SPEAKER_00: I think fundamentally what we're seeing is,
16:13
SPEAKER_00: you know, The country rallying behind the build agenda, whatever that is.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: And if you're going to build anything,
16:24
SPEAKER_00: you need energy, you need water, you need your inputs, you need feedstock.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: So that really is happening in Canada as well.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Quick break from the show.
16:34
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17:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's interesting.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of curious,
17:25
SPEAKER_01: you informed me that there's a trade war about to start or going on with Canada
17:29
SPEAKER_01: between the U.S. just before we started recording.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't the U.S. want to be able to buy our minerals and stuff from Canada?
17:37
SPEAKER_01: Is that something that has been going on for a while?
17:39
SPEAKER_01: And what are we doing?
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Shooting ourselves in the foot here?
17:41
SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I certainly won't comment on the administration's strategy around the trade war.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: But I mean,
17:51
SPEAKER_00: I think exactly to your point is it's interesting to note that three of the three of
17:56
SPEAKER_00: the main carve outs in Trump.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Trump's tariffs are energy, potash, so fertilizer, and minerals.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: All of those, Trump does not want to tariff.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I would hazard a guess that Carney might come back and tariff the other side of the deal.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: But I think that really touches on what we're talking about, right?
18:18
SPEAKER_00: That these are critical inputs and that resource security is national security, right?
18:25
SPEAKER_00: And so where Canada is supplying a lot of that to the United States,
18:28
SPEAKER_00: it From my view, it certainly doesn't seem like a good strategy to handcuff that.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: But what you're seeing is a sort of...
18:38
SPEAKER_00: You know,
18:38
SPEAKER_00: deepening of what those critical inputs are and then,
18:43
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:43
SPEAKER_00: where there's more sort of discretion from the administration around consumer goods
18:47
SPEAKER_00: and things like that.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: That's where they're tariffing pieces,
18:51
SPEAKER_00: which of course ultimately hurts U.S.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: consumers, but they are not at the moment attacking the critical resource sector.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: Man, we could just put an end to all this and just Canada,
19:03
SPEAKER_01: come on over, be part of the United States.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that'll obsess in people.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: But no, I do think it's fascinating, the relationship between Canada and the US.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: I think it'll be interesting to see.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what your thinking is,
19:17
SPEAKER_01: but as you're saying some of these things, it's almost interesting to me.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: It seems as though like the kind of a somewhat hostile nature that
19:23
SPEAKER_01: the Trump administration is taking is actually kind
19:26
SPEAKER_01: of like Gotten Canada almost like fired up and interested in doing some
19:29
SPEAKER_01: of these things.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's accurate,
19:31
SPEAKER_01: but that's what it kind of feels like from an outsider perspective.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, absolutely.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of us here will say that the Trump administration was maybe a kick in
19:46
SPEAKER_00: the ass that we needed to really think about Market diversification,
19:50
SPEAKER_00: which Canada has not been good at.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: When you live beside the world's largest economy, it's very easy to just sell into that market.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: As somebody that did my school in Asia-Pacific trade and do a lot of work
20:06
SPEAKER_00: with Europe,
20:08
SPEAKER_00: I've spent many,
20:09
SPEAKER_00: many years trying to encourage Canadian companies to think about other markets.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And that was a tough sell.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: You're sort of screaming into a void for a long time.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: That is no longer the case.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Canada is building relationships and deepening those relationships in a very productive way.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And I think, as I mentioned, I think it's also been...
20:30
SPEAKER_00: A good reminder of how vulnerable globalized supply chains can leave countries, right?
20:35
SPEAKER_00: It's not,
20:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
20:36
SPEAKER_00: if you rely on critical inputs from other countries,
20:41
SPEAKER_00: you are,
20:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
20:42
SPEAKER_00: you're fundamentally limited by what you can do and you're less than vulnerable
20:46
SPEAKER_00: to their decisions.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know,
20:50
SPEAKER_00: I think Canada has really leaned into, you know, being a little bit more assertive.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, on the, you know, the...
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Davos' speech certainly was a bit of a coming out for that,
21:02
SPEAKER_00: I think, and has leaned into national resilience and national security.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing in Canada a lot more conversation around national security.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: Military spending is not something that was widely discussed in
21:21
SPEAKER_00: an innovation ecosystem in Canada prior to the Trump administration.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And not to say that's all the Trump administration,
21:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure Russia and And Iran have have something to do with it as well.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
21:33
SPEAKER_00: that's it's driving really fundamentally,
21:36
SPEAKER_00: I think what it's what it's driving is a very pragmatic agenda where we're focused
21:40
SPEAKER_00: on sort of core Almost first principles of economic development
21:46
SPEAKER_00: and national security.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: How do you build stuff at home?
21:48
SPEAKER_00: How do you optimize trading relationships?
21:51
SPEAKER_00: How do you protect yourself?
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Again, whether that's sort of resource resilience or, you know, actual military spending.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
21:59
SPEAKER_00: it's really driven some new conversations in Canada that,
22:02
SPEAKER_00: quite frankly, weren't happening in the past because you had it pretty good.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: You know,
22:06
SPEAKER_00: when you look at the economy,
22:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, by taking things out of the ground and selling them overseas, right?
22:12
SPEAKER_00: This is effectively how Canada's built its economy since colonialism.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're kind of privileged, right?
22:19
SPEAKER_00: It's not a particularly complicated economy to build compared
22:22
SPEAKER_00: to something like Singapore or Israel or Korea,
22:26
SPEAKER_00: where they've had to be very innovative from the beginning as smaller countries
22:30
SPEAKER_00: that are less effectively endless resources, right?
22:35
SPEAKER_00: That has changed and I think a lot of it for the better is driving some positive discussion.
22:41
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23:35
SPEAKER_01: All right, back to the show.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: You know,
23:36
SPEAKER_01: it's quite interesting,
23:37
SPEAKER_01: actually,
23:37
SPEAKER_01: because if you think about it,
23:38
SPEAKER_01: in some ways,
23:39
SPEAKER_01: the The anti-globalization trend that has come back over
23:45
SPEAKER_01: the past several years has actually been or might be one of the best things
23:51
SPEAKER_01: that happened to Cleantech in general because if you do need
23:54
SPEAKER_01: to have energy security,
23:57
SPEAKER_01: And you want to have more national sovereignty and be less reliant
24:01
SPEAKER_01: on other countries.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: You're going to build more of these things in your own country, right?
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Which means more energy, means more build out.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: It means more,
24:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:09
SPEAKER_01: just like learning from other people who know how to do it and doing it
24:12
SPEAKER_01: in your country, I think.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: So it's fascinating to see that what's happening in Canada,
24:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming is also going on in other places.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: I don't know exactly the makeup of what's going on in the EU,
24:20
SPEAKER_01: but from what I do see as very much of an outsider,
24:23
SPEAKER_01: again, I don't get into very many discussions there.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming there's some amount of other countries being part of the EU who want
24:30
SPEAKER_01: to be a little bit more independent and kind of deal with,
24:33
SPEAKER_01: handle their own needs rather than relying on others.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: So that's a fascinating trend.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't necessarily thought about it from a more global perspective,
24:41
SPEAKER_01: but that could drive more More clean tech adoption, if you will.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: And we are definitely seeing this in Europe.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: And I think it started even pre-Trump in Europe
24:57
SPEAKER_00: when they realized how vulnerable they were to Russian natural gas.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: And so that drove a lot of innovation, in particular around industrial development.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Efficiency and things like that, right?
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Because they were shutting down manufacturing facilities in Germany,
25:14
SPEAKER_00: for example, for periods of time because they simply didn't have enough energy.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah,
25:20
SPEAKER_00: thinking about where your inputs come from,
25:22
SPEAKER_00: being very efficient with those inputs and
25:25
SPEAKER_00: or creating those inputs yourself is driving a lot of innovation.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: The other sort of driving...
25:32
SPEAKER_00: A factor as well,
25:33
SPEAKER_00: or the other thing to consider sort of along the value chain is also around waste,
25:37
SPEAKER_00: right?
25:37
SPEAKER_00: And so how can you be more efficient with your waste, converting it back into valuable inputs?
25:45
SPEAKER_00: Whether you call that circular economy or waste of value, right?
25:48
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: It's another space where we're seeing a lot of investor interest as well.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a pretty unique business model where you can often get paid On the inputs, i.e.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: waste tipping fees, and then paid on whatever you turn that waste into, right?
26:06
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a compelling business model that makes a lot of sense.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And I think Europe's been doing that for quite some time,
26:13
SPEAKER_00: but they're really thinking about, I mean,
26:15
SPEAKER_00: in Europe,
26:16
SPEAKER_00: really what they're concerned about on top
26:18
SPEAKER_00: of Russian energy supply is also critical minerals because they have basically none
26:23
SPEAKER_00: of them.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: They've got a little bit going on in Eastern Europe,
26:27
SPEAKER_00: but so they're really thinking they're also looking at really innovative ways
26:35
SPEAKER_00: to extract minerals from waste or to even sort
26:39
SPEAKER_00: of synthetically create different sort of metals and inputs as well,
26:45
SPEAKER_00: because they are very vulnerable on that supply chain for sure.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's pretty fascinating.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: I think it's interesting to see just how things are playing out and how it's growing.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very fascinating stuff.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: We'll see how it plays out.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: It'll be interesting to see the necessity kind of breeds invention, I guess you will.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: I am curious, again,
27:06
SPEAKER_01: we mentioned this at the beginning,
27:07
SPEAKER_01: but you guys have been really doing well despite some of these negative headwinds
27:13
SPEAKER_01: and you purchased another company.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: So that means that the companies you're working with,
27:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming, are actually in fact growing and you're helping companies grow.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, Silas here.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: If you're going to be headed to New York Climate Week this year,
27:33
SPEAKER_01: you need to be in the room where the most important capital managers
27:36
SPEAKER_01: and founders are.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: This is the Climate Capital Summit by Equal Ventures.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: The room will have over $1 trillion worth of climate capital money management,
27:44
SPEAKER_01: As well as $300 billion in federal funding opportunities.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: This year,
27:48
SPEAKER_01: as always,
27:48
SPEAKER_01: they have an absolute incredible lineup of speakers with people like Sophie Perdom
27:53
SPEAKER_01: from Planeteer Capital, Jonathan Silver from Apollo, and Jim Coulter from TPG.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: Just absolute legends.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: In this climate finance space,
28:01
SPEAKER_01: it's happening Thursday, September 24th, but space is extremely limited.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: There are only about 400 spots.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: So request your invite right away by going to climatecapitalsummit.com.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: That's climatecapitalsummit.com.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: I think last year there were something like 3000 people still on the wait list
28:18
SPEAKER_01: after they had reached capacity.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: So be sure to go request your invite right away.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: I'll be there recording some podcasts and man on the street interviews.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: So come say hi to me.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: And again, you got to go to climatecapitalsummit.com to request your invite.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: We'll see you at the summit.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: So I think the most critical one is being extremely clear
28:39
SPEAKER_00: about what your value proposition is and to whom
28:43
SPEAKER_00: that value proposition should be pointed at.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know,
28:46
SPEAKER_00: around the value prop itself,
28:49
SPEAKER_00: you know,
28:49
SPEAKER_00: like we said off the top,
28:51
SPEAKER_00: you know,
28:51
SPEAKER_00: leading with You know,
28:54
SPEAKER_00: you should do this because it's green and it's good for the world.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Probably not going to be a winning strategy at the moment.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: But if you're leading with this will save you money,
29:02
SPEAKER_00: it will help you with regulatory compliance.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: It will make your waste streams less expensive to get rid of.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: It'll reduce your vulnerability to outside inputs or supply chain constraints.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Those are all critical things.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, critical pieces that every business is thinking about around the world.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: And so the businesses that solve those challenges are clean tech businesses.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of them are winning around really understanding what
29:30
SPEAKER_00: the problem they're solving is and being very clear about that to the right people.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: That's another sort of common theme that we've seen across companies
29:40
SPEAKER_00: that are winning as well is,
29:42
SPEAKER_00: you know, Being crystal clear about what is your buying decisions?
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Who is actually buying this within a potential customer?
29:51
SPEAKER_00: It's just naming an industry is one thing that might be good enough for
29:56
SPEAKER_00: a seed capital deck,
29:58
SPEAKER_00: but understanding who within the The industry,
30:01
SPEAKER_00: where along the value chain might somebody buy this?
30:04
SPEAKER_00: And then within that organization, who is it?
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Is it the maintenance and sort of operations crew?
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Is it more of a senior level sustainability or business strategy decision,
30:16
SPEAKER_00: in which case you're targeting C-suites?
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Who are you actually trying to talk to?
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And what do you need to tell them in order to get their attention?
30:25
SPEAKER_00: The companies that really hold that sort of center to To their growth, they're winning.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: And companies that are more interested in perhaps hanging out in the lab
30:39
SPEAKER_00: and iterating on a big audacious technology and not getting out there and engaging
30:44
SPEAKER_00: with customers,
30:45
SPEAKER_00: engaging with funders, they're unfortunately falling behind because the...
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, the sort of morality or the long-term play around sustainability is a challenge.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: And so you need to be able to show,
30:57
SPEAKER_00: just like any other business, that you add value to who might buy this from you.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: And being very clear about that is definitely a big piece of it.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: The other piece that, again, I think is, you know, carries beyond climate, but, you know, is...
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Founders that really have the tenacity and the sort of genuine ability to grow
31:20
SPEAKER_00: a company is a huge factor.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's maybe more relevant in the climate space in
31:28
SPEAKER_00: that unlike perhaps software and other types of businesses,
31:32
SPEAKER_00: you'll have more founders that are maybe scientists or engineers
31:36
SPEAKER_00: or maybe even just people that love the earth,
31:39
SPEAKER_00: all of which are great, but generally not the...
31:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, best business skills in those, in those, in those environments.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know,
31:49
SPEAKER_00: having a founding team,
31:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:50
SPEAKER_00: where everybody knows their role,
31:52
SPEAKER_00: you need your technical expertise, but,
31:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:55
SPEAKER_00: you also need your business people,
31:57
SPEAKER_00: you need your sales people,
31:59
SPEAKER_00: and where you have a founding team that is sort of well-rounded like that,
32:04
SPEAKER_00: they're sort of, they're winning.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple of things around this I'd like to follow up with is,
32:10
SPEAKER_01: first of all,
32:12
SPEAKER_01: How often,
32:14
SPEAKER_01: when they're going out to fundraise,
32:15
SPEAKER_01: are these companies actually raising from climate VCs or clean tech VCs?
32:19
SPEAKER_01: Or is it often just like generalist VCs that see the broader picture now
32:24
SPEAKER_01: because they're not just pitching on a green perspective?
32:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we're certainly broadening beyond just climate VCs.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: Even a lot of the climate VCs are necessarily calling themselves that anymore.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so leaning into,
32:45
SPEAKER_00: for example,
32:45
SPEAKER_00: where we've seen some checks being written into cleantech businesses are coming
32:49
SPEAKER_00: from VCs that might have a dual use sort of military mandate
32:54
SPEAKER_00: to them are very interested in a lot of these,
32:57
SPEAKER_00: a lot of the solutions that we would otherwise call cleantech.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we're certainly seeing checks being written by generalist VCs.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: And I think at the same time,
33:07
SPEAKER_00: we're also seeing Climate VCs really think about what some
33:14
SPEAKER_00: of their gating criteria might be.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: For example,
33:16
SPEAKER_00: there's quite a few different funds that have sort of gigaton potential as
33:21
SPEAKER_00: a gating criteria,
33:23
SPEAKER_00: which makes a lot of sense if you're trying to fund You know,
33:28
SPEAKER_00: massive nuclear, big moonshot ideas, whatever they may be, hydrogen, et cetera.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: But those sort of,
33:35
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:35
SPEAKER_00: panacea solutions that are going to fix everything and,
33:39
SPEAKER_00: you know, have gigaton potential are few and far between.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: And quite frankly,
33:43
SPEAKER_00: even if they are,
33:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:44
SPEAKER_00: do have that real potential, it's a long, long journey ahead to commercialize those.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, what are...
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the low hanging fruit or sort of simpler things that we can solve in
33:57
SPEAKER_00: the meantime, I come back to waste of value as an example of that.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of really low hanging fruit,
34:02
SPEAKER_00: massive opportunities out there around waste of value.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: And so really starting to see that,
34:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:10
SPEAKER_00: the intersection of energy and AI is a fascinating one as well that,
34:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:14
SPEAKER_00: the sophisticated AI investors are well aware that ultimately,
34:19
SPEAKER_00: The AI business model,
34:23
SPEAKER_00: certainly around the large language models is likely one that is sort
34:27
SPEAKER_00: of energy electrons in and tokens out.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: So ultimately, even that is sort of an energy play at its core.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: And so we're seeing lots of AI investors interested in energy solutions as well.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: Is that because of that nature or is that changing the valuations
34:46
SPEAKER_01: that these companies are seeing?
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good question.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure there's data out on that yet to prove that.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
34:58
SPEAKER_00: you're certainly seeing some pretty massive valuations around energy companies
35:03
SPEAKER_00: that look like they can solve the baseload power problem for data centers.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Those appear to be having humongous valuations.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: A couple have actually gone public right from here in Vancouver.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: General Fusion listed on the NASDAQ.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago,
35:22
SPEAKER_00: and then there was also a geothermal company that just went public,
35:25
SPEAKER_00: and we're seeing a lot of interest in other nuclear companies as well.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: So I would tend to think the answer is yes for a sort of niche of clean tech,
35:33
SPEAKER_00: how that sort of averages out across some of the other,
35:38
SPEAKER_00: you know, climate tech investments that might be seeing down rounds.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm not quite sure what the data would show, but...
35:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious because I was wondering,
35:47
SPEAKER_01: depending on what kind of company you are,
35:49
SPEAKER_01: if you can play in anything that touches the AI cycle,
35:53
SPEAKER_01: then it makes sense probably to go that route because you're going to have
35:57
SPEAKER_01: an easier time raising money.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: And assuming you're efficient with it and you have the right fundamentals in place,
36:02
SPEAKER_01: you can actually use that money properly, go further with it.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: But if you are not necessarily playing that, you could maybe spin the story a certain way.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: In the coming years,
36:13
SPEAKER_01: you're not going to hit the kind of milestones or interest level from the VCs
36:16
SPEAKER_01: that you would need to continue on with that trajectory evaluations.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: Then you might want to avoid it because hypothetically,
36:22
SPEAKER_01: your biggest champions might be VCs that are more interested in the other things
36:26
SPEAKER_01: that are not AI energy related.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: And then they'd be priced out of the round in the future, right?
36:31
SPEAKER_01: Or you'd have to do a down round, which would be not exactly positive.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: So I just wonder if there's...
36:38
SPEAKER_01: I should see if I could find somebody to talk to about when to do one versus the other.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: On this topic earlier,
36:45
SPEAKER_01: you mentioned that some of the firms investing now kind of have a dual mandate
36:51
SPEAKER_01: with defense being part of that.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: With some of the firms now,
36:55
SPEAKER_01: some of the companies that are raising,
36:56
SPEAKER_01: going out and deciding, okay,
36:58
SPEAKER_01: we're focused on kind of more of these fundamentals things and then climate is
37:02
SPEAKER_01: a benefit or something that we also mentioned,
37:04
SPEAKER_01: but it's not necessarily the front and center, like why we do everything.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: Is that,
37:09
SPEAKER_01: generally speaking,
37:10
SPEAKER_01: just like increasing the overall TAM that the investors are seeing
37:13
SPEAKER_01: and therefore leading to like an easier time fundraising because there is such
37:18
SPEAKER_01: a big potential?
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's an interesting question.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: The dual use mandate is something that we're seeing creating a lot of opportunities
37:29
SPEAKER_00: for companies for sure.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: I think we're also seeing...
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Companies that might be,
37:35
SPEAKER_00: frankly, distracted by it because it is easy to sort of chase that opportunity.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean,
37:42
SPEAKER_00: it's certainly, there's a couple of different ways that it creates opportunities.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: One, the TAM and the sort of big contracts and things that can come out
37:50
SPEAKER_00: of military procurement is one piece.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: The other place we're seeing it create a lot of opportunities,
37:57
SPEAKER_00: which has long been part of the American innovation ecosystem,
38:02
SPEAKER_00: less so in Canada and Europe,
38:04
SPEAKER_00: but is certainly increasing here now is,
38:07
SPEAKER_00: you know, really the military is sort of an innovation sandbox, right?
38:13
SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing that rapidly accelerating here in Canada,
38:17
SPEAKER_00: especially with how complicated our country is to defend,
38:22
SPEAKER_00: quite frankly,
38:23
SPEAKER_00: between,
38:23
SPEAKER_00: you know,
38:23
SPEAKER_00: Arctic sovereignty is a huge subject for us right now, as it should be, right?
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Sadly, on a climate podcast,
38:31
SPEAKER_00: as the polar ice caps melt,
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Russian or otherwise ability to come from the north is really quite pressing.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: It's also a big part of what Trump is trying to figure out as well
38:47
SPEAKER_00: with Canada is how we can work together to protect the Arctic despite
38:52
SPEAKER_00: the Americans only having a sliver of it with Alaska.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: And so that creates a lot of opportunities as well in terms of,
39:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:01
SPEAKER_00: an early,
39:01
SPEAKER_00: early market for innovative solutions that,
39:06
SPEAKER_00: you know, may otherwise never have been commercialized, right?
39:08
SPEAKER_00: Because,
39:09
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:09
SPEAKER_00: in the Arctic,
39:10
SPEAKER_00: in some places, they're spending, you know, $2 a kilowatt hour for energy, right?
39:15
SPEAKER_00: And so if you think about that as your,
39:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:18
SPEAKER_00: rather than 15 or 20 cents a kilowatt hour, you know, so it's 10x the energy cost.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: And so you think about that.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: As your baseline,
39:27
SPEAKER_00: you create a market for solutions that otherwise might never have been economical,
39:34
SPEAKER_00: right?
39:34
SPEAKER_00: If you have a very interesting energy generation or storage solution
39:39
SPEAKER_00: that never would have been economical in an urban or semi-urban area,
39:43
SPEAKER_00: they are doing lots of interesting things with fuel cells.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And so that's another opportunity.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: We think about the military opportunity both on the innovation side as well as
39:55
SPEAKER_00: the customer side.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's an uncomfortable question for a lot of people kind of determining
40:01
SPEAKER_01: whether or not to be part of the defense industry or kind of cater to some of that.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: But I think if I remember correctly,
40:09
SPEAKER_01: this was when I,
40:10
SPEAKER_01: this would have been a while ago, probably when I first got into cleantech.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: I remember hearing that there was US generals were talking about the importance
40:20
SPEAKER_01: of climate technologies,
40:22
SPEAKER_01: because if climate change happens,
40:25
SPEAKER_01: the first thing that you need is basically defense tech.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: You're going to have a lot of people shifting around,
40:30
SPEAKER_01: just generally speaking,
40:32
SPEAKER_01: bad things going on,
40:33
SPEAKER_01: and you're going to need to have security and national sovereignty.
40:37
SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting to hear you guys are directly having to deal with that,
40:41
SPEAKER_01: with the effects of it.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I also wonder about, you know, the opportunity with the TAM.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: The reason I ask that question is because I think there's a lot of opportunity
40:50
SPEAKER_01: to actually solve climate problems when you get to scaled production.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: In some cases, you won't have enough scale production just solving the climate problem.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: You kind of need to serve a defense system.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: Use case as well.
41:04
SPEAKER_01: This is an example.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the first guy that we had on the podcast once we rebranded.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Will O'Brien is building Ulysses and they do underwater autonomous drones
41:13
SPEAKER_01: for defense capabilities as well as for seagrass restoration.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: But the seagrass like restoration market was just like a fraction of what
41:20
SPEAKER_01: the defense market was.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: So now they'll be able to get to a point where they can actually produce tons
41:26
SPEAKER_01: of these drones for way,
41:28
SPEAKER_01: way cheaper than they would be because they can scale up production and
41:30
SPEAKER_01: that will allow them to do more of the climate things as well.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: You just have to be comfortable choosing to play in both markets,
41:37
SPEAKER_01: which are also very different games to play, by the way.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: For anybody who's not familiar,
41:41
SPEAKER_01: selling to the government or selling to the military is very different than selling
41:46
SPEAKER_01: to NGOs doing sea grass restoration.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: But before we move on, I really want to talk about AI.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: But I'm curious,
41:56
SPEAKER_01: could you summarize then kind of so far,
41:58
SPEAKER_01: what are the key levers,
42:00
SPEAKER_01: if you could list them out,
42:02
SPEAKER_01: the key levers that people are using to win in the current environment?
42:07
SPEAKER_00: The first one being crystal clear about who you're trying to sell to,
42:13
SPEAKER_00: running very clear discovery motions to unpack that if you need to in
42:17
SPEAKER_00: the early stages.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Those are who's winning.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: The other key lever is around capital efficiency.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know,
42:27
SPEAKER_00: I think as the venture market shifts and,
42:32
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:33
SPEAKER_00: we're again more in a show-me market rather than a tell-me market,
42:36
SPEAKER_00: being very efficient with capital,
42:38
SPEAKER_00: making sure you're getting that matched and stacked with as much non-dilutive
42:42
SPEAKER_00: and friendly capital as you can are critically important factors for winning
42:47
SPEAKER_00: as well.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that...
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, understand your market,
42:52
SPEAKER_00: be efficient with capital,
42:54
SPEAKER_00: tenacious,
42:55
SPEAKER_00: get out there, talk to people, listen, understand what your customers actually need.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Do you find that the caliber of founders and just people in the space is changing?
43:06
SPEAKER_01: Are any people giving up and some people staying?
43:08
SPEAKER_01: Because I oftentimes observe this,
43:10
SPEAKER_01: that it seemed like with a lot of climate founders,
43:12
SPEAKER_01: they were there because they just had this bleeding heart for
43:14
SPEAKER_01: the environment situation,
43:15
SPEAKER_01: but they didn't have what it took to actually go out and be flexible
43:19
SPEAKER_01: and build properly and just bring that kick-ass nature to it.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: Do you find anything different about the founders themselves now versus three or four years ago?
43:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a good question.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: I think we're seeing the same thing that you are.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And I think I would add to that that there might have been two types of people
43:45
SPEAKER_00: that might have now given up.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: One, those that were bleeding hearts, as you mentioned, they're up against it now.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: It's a tough environment.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: And so I hope everybody that can fights through.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: But of course, there are Everybody has lives.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that is probably driving even more people giving up though is that
44:10
SPEAKER_00: the sort of grant funding ecosystem is a lot different.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: And so there were a lot of founders that we would come across
44:18
SPEAKER_00: that were running effectively zombie companies,
44:21
SPEAKER_00: science projects to try to solve some crazy climate issue.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: And there was enough sort of tailwinds and enough sort
44:28
SPEAKER_00: of Global philanthropic capital,
44:31
SPEAKER_00: government capital,
44:32
SPEAKER_00: and stuff behind climate change as a long-term thing that we need to solve,
44:37
SPEAKER_00: that those companies could survive.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: Climate change now is a much of a shorter term,
44:43
SPEAKER_00: how do we think about energy, food, water, critical resource, resilience, right?
44:48
SPEAKER_00: And so it is those big moonshot ideas or science projects that would get money
44:53
SPEAKER_00: before, it's a tough market for those guys as well.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, makes sense.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: All right,
44:58
SPEAKER_01: let's move on to some of the sales stuff,
45:00
SPEAKER_01: like more for these companies, particularly.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you can comment necessarily on all of these,
45:05
SPEAKER_01: but I'd be really curious because in the recruiting world,
45:07
SPEAKER_01: I've had a lot of our customers who are looking
45:09
SPEAKER_01: for salespeople become extremely interested now in salespeople who are really good
45:15
SPEAKER_01: at leveraging AI to kind of make them more effective or whatnot.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: So what are some of the things that are changing with go-to-market or growth,
45:22
SPEAKER_01: generally speaking, using AI that you're seeing?
45:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, lots,
45:28
SPEAKER_00: and I'll certainly caveat that my co-founder Nick has led a lot of this work
45:33
SPEAKER_00: at our business along with our development team as well.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: And so we've been working on quite a few different things,
45:39
SPEAKER_00: but I think in terms of what we're seeing as it relates directly to sales is,
45:46
SPEAKER_00: I would say that automated outreach has been here for a while, right?
45:50
SPEAKER_00: That's not something that's new.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: You could send messages at scale.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: To lots of people,
45:57
SPEAKER_00: which was maybe the first sort of automation change that really started to shift AI
46:02
SPEAKER_00: and sales.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: What I think we're seeing now is really a shift from where AI can even do a lot of
46:10
SPEAKER_00: the homework for you so that your salespeople can do the part that they're great at
46:15
SPEAKER_00: or should be great at, which is human touch.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: And so how do you leverage AI so that they're helping you understand your market better?
46:24
SPEAKER_00: And understand who you're targeting,
46:27
SPEAKER_00: why you're targeting them,
46:28
SPEAKER_00: aligning the messaging to that strategy,
46:31
SPEAKER_00: and then managing that process for you so that you can spend more time talking
46:36
SPEAKER_00: and building relationships,
46:37
SPEAKER_00: going for lunches,
46:38
SPEAKER_00: shaking hands,
46:39
SPEAKER_00: being at conferences,
46:40
SPEAKER_00: less time doing market assessments,
46:43
SPEAKER_00: trying to figure out who you're actually trying to reach and building lists.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: All of that stuff,
46:48
SPEAKER_00: I would say at the highest level, that's the biggest change that we're seeing.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: AI can take a lot of that work off of a salesperson's plate.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: And then of course,
46:57
SPEAKER_00: also the automated outreach piece,
46:59
SPEAKER_00: which is huge, though that's been here for a while.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
47:03
SPEAKER_01: So are you saying that it's kind of flipped where instead of doing any of
47:06
SPEAKER_01: the outreach,
47:07
SPEAKER_01: AI is mostly helping them with the research and then they are able to do
47:11
SPEAKER_01: the outreach to be more effective with the outreach itself?
47:15
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, yeah, sort of.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
47:18
SPEAKER_00: you know, of course, we still use tools to do outreach a little bit faster.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: But I think we are seeing, I mean,
47:26
SPEAKER_00: certainly my LinkedIn,
47:27
SPEAKER_00: I think many others are,
47:29
SPEAKER_00: you know, they're crowded as emails have been for a long time.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: And so how do you use AI to enable real human connection is really the sort
47:40
SPEAKER_00: of core question that we're trying to solve.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: And Another thing that AI is very helpful with,
47:46
SPEAKER_00: and we're building right now what we're calling the warm path
47:49
SPEAKER_00: or secret handshake machine, which is how do you get a warm path into someone?
47:54
SPEAKER_00: How do you map out your network and your network's network so
47:58
SPEAKER_00: that you can understand how to get through to the right people through
48:02
SPEAKER_00: the right channels where you have trust brokers?
48:04
SPEAKER_00: And so for someone like Climate Door,
48:07
SPEAKER_00: who's built a huge network,
48:10
SPEAKER_00: That's a very effective tool
48:11
SPEAKER_00: because we're pretty much always only one degree removed from pretty much anyone,
48:15
SPEAKER_00: right?
48:16
SPEAKER_00: There's someone in our network will know that person.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: And so that's a big one as well.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: So rather than spending time sending thousands of messages and filtering through it,
48:28
SPEAKER_00: we're spending time making sure that we can send 50 messages really thoughtfully
48:34
SPEAKER_00: and accurately.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: Now, I think that's valuable.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: I really hope that more people pick up on that style because, man, it is rough out there.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: It is like just every day just getting shot at so many times,
48:48
SPEAKER_01: so many just dumb messages that are so AI written.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: It really bothers me.
48:52
SPEAKER_01: It's super lazy.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, in reality,
48:55
SPEAKER_01: I think what you're saying is like people are being forced,
48:58
SPEAKER_01: which is rightfully so,
49:00
SPEAKER_01: to go back to the old school method of like,
49:02
SPEAKER_01: do you have a relationship with them,
49:04
SPEAKER_01: whether that is directly or indirectly through a friend of yours, right?
49:07
SPEAKER_01: And thankfully,
49:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:09
SPEAKER_01: the age of like getting bombarded with too many messages has led that to come back
49:14
SPEAKER_01: to nature.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: So that's interesting.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: The other,
49:18
SPEAKER_00: just on the subject of going back to old school,
49:21
SPEAKER_00: God forbid, maybe we have to start picking up the phone and calling each other.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
49:26
SPEAKER_00: that's always been a huge part of what we do is hit the phones and go for lunches,
49:32
SPEAKER_00: all that type of stuff.
49:32
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's an interesting time.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: Now you've got to get past Apple's iPhone as a screening thing automatically
49:39
SPEAKER_01: or something like that.
49:40
SPEAKER_01: I've noticed a substantial amount more recently.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: If you have any visibility into this,
49:48
SPEAKER_01: I know Nick does a lot of this stuff,
49:49
SPEAKER_01: but what does a modern AI-enabled growth team look like?
49:53
SPEAKER_01: Is it different in terms of headcount?
49:55
SPEAKER_01: Is it just people getting the tools?
49:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: We've actually seen it grow, the headcount.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a bit counterintuitive,
50:04
SPEAKER_00: but as you just said,
50:07
SPEAKER_00: as we spend more time doing old school outreach,
50:11
SPEAKER_00: building relationships and talking to each other, that's quite time consuming.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: What it's enabled us to do is have a bigger team spending less time behind
50:23
SPEAKER_00: the computer doing low value tasks,
50:25
SPEAKER_00: spending more time out in the community,
50:27
SPEAKER_00: out at conferences, out listening to leaders, investors, all these types of things.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: And so it's actually resulted in us needing more staff
50:37
SPEAKER_00: and we've grown our sales team because of that.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: But I think what the modern sort of sales team looks like in
50:46
SPEAKER_00: an AI enabled environment is having a suite of tools that are custom built
50:51
SPEAKER_00: to what you're trying to achieve.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: And so making sure that you're being very thoughtful about the context
50:57
SPEAKER_00: that you're giving your agents,
51:00
SPEAKER_00: having very specific micro agents to do different tasks or micro solutions,
51:06
SPEAKER_00: whether that's an agent or something else, is very helpful.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that is a big piece of what enables that sales team as well
51:17
SPEAKER_00: as having a well-architectured sort of company brain.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know,
51:22
SPEAKER_00: going through not only things like contacts,
51:25
SPEAKER_00: obviously we've had HubSpot and CRMs for a long time,
51:29
SPEAKER_00: but really, you know, how do we think about this market?
51:32
SPEAKER_00: Who do we know in this market?
51:34
SPEAKER_00: What examples or case studies do we have?
51:38
SPEAKER_00: All of that type of stuff,
51:39
SPEAKER_00: having a very centralized brain to help people think through those things
51:44
SPEAKER_00: in real time has also been very helpful.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the changes that for us,
51:51
SPEAKER_00: what that means is that our sector experts or our leaders like myself,
51:57
SPEAKER_00: being less of a bottleneck on, hey, can you help me think through this?
52:01
SPEAKER_00: Like, sure, yeah, let's meet in two weeks.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: Versus now,
52:05
SPEAKER_00: they can go and talk to our brain and understand more about how we would think
52:12
SPEAKER_00: through something.
52:13
SPEAKER_00: And so really sort of systematizing processes and knowledge so
52:17
SPEAKER_00: that it's more easily accessible to sales teams,
52:21
SPEAKER_00: I think is really what's happening there.
52:24
SPEAKER_01: Are there particular tools?
52:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there's a lot of different tools that you could reference,
52:28
SPEAKER_01: but are there key tools that you see teams using?
52:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:34
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, we build most of our tools in-house.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: Most of it's proprietary stuff that we've built, sort of stacking together different tools.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so because of that, we run a lot of it through Claude.
52:51
SPEAKER_00: So we're able to,
52:53
SPEAKER_00: because we've built proprietary ways of doing things and our company brain,
52:59
SPEAKER_00: we're able to then build agents and different things on top of a Of a foundation.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: And so right now that's Claude.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: For us, it's all being built so that it's easy to be moved to an open source or
53:11
SPEAKER_00: a different type of model.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: But that I think is what you're starting to see.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: Companies on the leading edge are building their own brain,
53:21
SPEAKER_00: their own data moat to layer on top of the trust and the expertise
53:26
SPEAKER_00: that their people have.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's really what we're doing is sort of taking our Taking our trust,
53:33
SPEAKER_00: our networks,
53:34
SPEAKER_00: our expertise, and using AI to turn those into intelligent and actionable.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: Really, that's the key word, actionable insights, right?
53:42
SPEAKER_00: Because you can lose yourself in AI slop and Claude or whatever,
53:48
SPEAKER_00: telling you all sorts of different things.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: How do you make it as useful as possible so that a salesperson knows what is the next move?
53:54
SPEAKER_00: What is the highest value thing or person I can meet today?
53:59
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: Are you...
54:02
SPEAKER_01: Are you seeing that a lot of the salespeople,
54:03
SPEAKER_01: either you guys hire or your customers hire,
54:07
SPEAKER_01: are they already relatively in the know about these things or does it require a lot
54:11
SPEAKER_01: of training?
54:14
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, from our perspective, I mean, we hire very deliberately for that set of expertise.
54:24
SPEAKER_00: I would have to sort of talk to our HR people to see how many people they filter
54:29
SPEAKER_00: through before I talk to them.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: I would hazard a guess that no, not really.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, certainly we see it more in the companies that we support,
54:41
SPEAKER_00: our portfolio companies or the companies that we're helping to grow.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: We do a lot of AI capacity building for our portfolio companies because they are not
54:50
SPEAKER_00: in the know, even the salespeople are not.
54:53
SPEAKER_00: It seems that most are now at least able to Use some of the softwares out there
54:59
SPEAKER_00: to build lists and even do a bit of automated outreach.
55:03
SPEAKER_00: But leveraging AI to really do the homework to help you make the next best move,
55:10
SPEAKER_00: we're not seeing a ton of that.
55:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's interesting because I'm just thinking through this.
55:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm wondering,
55:17
SPEAKER_01: is it a situation where in the long term,
55:21
SPEAKER_01: the salespeople are going to need to learn how to do these things
55:23
SPEAKER_01: and build these things?
55:24
SPEAKER_01: Or will it always be like,
55:25
SPEAKER_01: there's a tech expert who knows how to build these things to allow the salespeople
55:28
SPEAKER_01: to go use them?
55:30
SPEAKER_01: Because I think that a lot of the startups want a salesperson to kind
55:33
SPEAKER_01: of know their craft enough to also know the tools to build,
55:37
SPEAKER_01: to enable them to do it if it's a very small team.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: But once you grow the team,
55:41
SPEAKER_01: like the head of sales is going to be motivating and managing people at the end of
55:44
SPEAKER_01: the day.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: Like they're not going to be building tech stacks.
55:47
SPEAKER_01: I would assume maybe,
55:49
SPEAKER_01: maybe people become so good at that and they can just kind of become intuitive,
55:52
SPEAKER_01: but My guess is that there's going to be some kind of expert on the tech side
55:55
SPEAKER_01: because you can't be so expert on the tech side.
55:57
SPEAKER_01: If you're really expert on sale,
55:59
SPEAKER_01: like if you're focused on honing your sales skills,
56:01
SPEAKER_01: you're probably not going to be focused on honing your tech skills.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: That's my kind of thought process.
56:05
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that resonates with you at all.
56:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that all sounds right to me.
56:12
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of it will depend also on what happens with the model race, right?
56:19
SPEAKER_00: If companies are moving more towards You know,
56:23
SPEAKER_00: open source,
56:24
SPEAKER_00: on-prem,
56:25
SPEAKER_00: sort of proprietary data sets,
56:27
SPEAKER_00: the, you know, building on top of that will be slightly more complicated.
56:32
SPEAKER_00: You know,
56:33
SPEAKER_00: if you're using the sort of off-the-shelf frontier models like Claude or,
56:36
SPEAKER_00: you know, ChatGPT, they're so intuitive.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, quite frankly, it's pretty easy to sort of build things in them.
56:43
SPEAKER_00: And so I would,
56:44
SPEAKER_00: that might be one sort of divergence in the market would be,
56:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
56:48
SPEAKER_00: if companies are mostly just using LLMs that are built for them and
56:53
SPEAKER_00: where they're constantly updating the user interface and telling you
56:57
SPEAKER_00: about new features and you can take courses on it, all that type of stuff.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: I would tend to think the expectation of salespeople to be able to use those
57:05
SPEAKER_00: and build their own niche tools within that would be higher
57:11
SPEAKER_00: if companies are moving more towards, which I tend to think is where we're going.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: More towards custom models,
57:19
SPEAKER_00: on-prem,
57:19
SPEAKER_00: all that type of stuff where you're not then layering on top of it an LLM company
57:24
SPEAKER_00: that does a lot of the heavy lifting around the user interface.
57:29
SPEAKER_00: Could be one sort of way that that goes.
57:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:33
SPEAKER_01: No, I should probably ask some of my customers more of these questions, but this is good.
57:38
SPEAKER_01: I think that's good.
57:39
SPEAKER_01: We're basically out of time here, man.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: So I got one big question for you before we go call to action,
57:46
SPEAKER_01: but What are the things, out of curiosity, I hope you prepped for this one.
57:50
SPEAKER_01: Are there any unique things that you think Canadian founders specifically can kind
57:54
SPEAKER_01: of bring to the innovation and cleantech landscape?
57:56
SPEAKER_01: Anything like culturally speaking,
57:58
SPEAKER_01: based on the background and everything,
58:00
SPEAKER_01: like what do Canadians especially have like a unique ability on?
58:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a good question because I'm often answering that spiel
58:11
SPEAKER_00: on what does Canada bring as a geography and that whole But Canadian founders,
58:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
58:18
SPEAKER_00: I think one thing that they do bring to the table,
58:21
SPEAKER_00: a lot of them,
58:23
SPEAKER_00: is that there's a lot of innovation that is born out of Canada's dirty history,
58:28
SPEAKER_00: quite frankly, or even current day, lots of dirty industries, right?
58:32
SPEAKER_00: And so there are a lot of very cool founders that come out of Oil and gas
58:38
SPEAKER_00: or forestry or mining that invent really cool, practical things.
58:42
SPEAKER_00: They're often not the flashy ones that go raise a whole bunch of venture capital,
58:45
SPEAKER_00: but they're very cool solutions that scale.
58:47
SPEAKER_00: And that's a big reason why Canada was such a leader in sort of clean tech 1.0,
58:52
SPEAKER_00: if you will,
58:53
SPEAKER_00: around a lot of the stuff around water and soil remediation,
58:57
SPEAKER_00: some of the earliest days of clean tech, even before solar and wind took off.
59:02
SPEAKER_00: Canada really was and still is a leader in that because we've had such a long history of
59:09
SPEAKER_00: Of natural resource sectors where for a long time we've been trying,
59:13
SPEAKER_00: at least in theory, to do that as cleanly as possible.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: And so it forces innovation.
59:18
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of very pragmatic,
59:22
SPEAKER_00: interesting people that have lived up in Northern BC or Edmonton and spent a lot
59:27
SPEAKER_00: of time actually doing the damn thing.
59:29
SPEAKER_00: And so they're cool founders.
59:30
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I think is most unique about our founders.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: For what it's worth, again, I'm an outsider, but That does make a lot of sense to me.
59:37
SPEAKER_01: And I personally have noticed that there does seem to be a lot of unique solutions
59:42
SPEAKER_01: that come out of Canada.
59:43
SPEAKER_01: I think when I first got interested in this space around 2020,
59:47
SPEAKER_01: some of the coolest companies that I remember seeing were usually based out
59:51
SPEAKER_01: of Toronto.
59:51
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of really interesting companies coming out of there.
59:54
SPEAKER_01: But I wonder that your unique position kind of being adjacent to the US and
59:59
SPEAKER_01: in some ways kind of connected in a different way to the EU,
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: I guess you could say, than we are.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_01: Just the resource kind of nature of Canada to me seems like something interesting, right?
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: maybe I'm wrong,
1:00:11
SPEAKER_01: but I perceive,
1:00:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:00:12
SPEAKER_01: generally speaking,
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: like I still perceive Canadians to have this kind of like frontier spirit,
1:00:16
SPEAKER_01: broadly speaking,
1:00:16
SPEAKER_01: similar to what Americans have,
1:00:18
SPEAKER_01: but just maybe with a nicer method to it and a nicer and a funny accent.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_01: Just kidding.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_01: But in general,
1:00:25
SPEAKER_01: I still feel like there's a lot of similarities with that kind of like cowboy nature
1:00:29
SPEAKER_01: of North America in general.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_01: So I just think it's interesting to see what some of these founders are bringing into the table.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_01: But any last calls to action or are you going to push back on any of my things there?
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: But any last calls to action where people can go to learn more about what you guys are doing?
1:00:45
SPEAKER_00: I think, I mean,
1:00:46
SPEAKER_00: maybe one thing that I'll flag is that we'll be very active at New York Climate Week
1:00:49
SPEAKER_00: and hope to see lots of people there.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_00: I think if you're a founder looking to grow your company, certainly let us know.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_00: If you're an investor or a funder looking for deal flow, we're always happy to talk.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_00: And for those that are looking for jobs, we're always hiring.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_00: And so I would say we love to have conversations.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_00: We're ecosystem builders.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: And so reach out either digitally or come find us at Climate Week.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: Epic, man.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_01: We will hopefully see you there.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: I'll be there for a very brief time,
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: but I've got family visiting me in Nashville,
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: so I won't be there most of the week, unfortunately.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_01: But anyways, thanks for coming on, man.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: This is really good.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: It's good to catch up.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this has been awesome.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_00: Nice to see you, brother.