Latest / Clean Power Hour / Titanium Venture’s Role in Funding the Energy Transition with Albert Bielinko | EP236

Transcript

Titanium Venture’s Role in Funding the Energy Transition with Albert Bielinko | EP236 · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  Albert Bielinko: One way that we are different as a venture capital firm is we have an extensive network of different channels, and we've actually generated over $700 million of revenue for our portfolio companies so far through those channel partnerships. And so a lot of we also hear of a lot of interesting and exciting ideas and founders through those channels. And so, yeah, any any way we can. And then we will also reach out to founders, obviously as well.
• 1:17
  intro: Are you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our hosts, Tim Montague and John Weaver bring you the best in solar, batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization. We do too.
• 1:32
  intro: We're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition
• 1:45
  Tim Montague: today on the Clean Power Hour, funding and scaling the clean energy transition. My guest today is Albert Bielinko.
• 1:51
  Tim Montague: He is a general partner at a venture firm called titanium ventures. Welcome to the show, Albert,
• 1:57
  Albert Bielinko: it's really great to be here. Thank you.
• 1:59
  Albert Bielinko: Check out all
• 1:59
  Tim Montague: of our content at cleanpowerhour.com Please give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify and reach out to me on LinkedIn or at the website, cleanpowerhour.com so Albert, I would love to set the table a little bit for our listeners who are energy professionals working on solar, batteries, wind and other clean energy technologies. But how do you see the world and and how did you come to clean tech?
• 2:29
  Tim Montague: Yeah,
• 2:29
  Albert Bielinko: it's a really good question. So I mean, we see the world as trying to essentially scale the energy transition within within this space. So we, we are a generalist venture capital firm, just to give some context, so we started 13 years ago. We've invested over a billion dollars in 100 technology companies so far, and many of those are really businesses that are trying to make the world a much better place. And so what led us to this juncture, ultimately, of focusing on clean energy and climate tech, is that about six years ago, I started reading really deeply about the space and really becoming interested about what was happening. And I was just shocked at the level of scientific consensus, around around what was happening with, with with the growth of of greenhouse gasses in the environment. And I was also shocked by the narrative and how little airtime it actually got.
• 3:26
  Albert Bielinko: And so we started building that as a separate category within our firm, so investing really actively in some of the companies that we thought would help to scale the energy transition and and that's in addition to all the great work we've done before around investing in technology companies, around enterprise software, cyber security, FinTech, etc. So so we are, we are a firm that loves to back what's coming next now. So we love to back founders that have really big visions. And so we basically decided that the energy transition and climate tech is another really, really important area that warrants a lot of investment. We basically think it's another industrial revolution that's occurring before our eyes, and we think we really want to invest in projects that help manage or mitigate the consequences of the climate crisis, and we have, we just have a house view that the transformation of all aspects of the physical world over the coming decades will be on par with the changes brought about by digital technologies, and they'll actually be far more significant than most expect. So we're always going to focus on the largest areas of emissions and efficacy, on reduction and scalability, and so we're really actively pursuing investments in the space. We've done several that I can talk about as well.
• 4:45
  Albert Bielinko: Are your
• 4:45
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• 4:48
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• 5:08
  Tim Montague: Ready to supercharge your clean energy assets? Visit, W, A, T, T, C, h.io, and power up your efficiency today. Sure. Yeah, I'm curious in in your bio, you mentioned 19 unicorns, and a unicorn is a is a startup that has achieved some level of financial success. Is, is? Is, what is that success? And how do you, if you can, how do you identify technologies and teams and ultimately, companies that you think have that potential?
• 5:47
  Tim Montague: Because, obviously, it's a, it's a risk reward equation. Right?
• 5:51
  Tim Montague: You're taking venture risk on on the less than guarantee that there's some reward at the end of that
• 6:01
  Albert Bielinko: absolutely. And just to set some context for your audience, so venture capital is an area. It's a, actually quite a niche area of capital markets compared to private equity and infrastructure. And basically, it revolves around financing new companies that have a shot at creating some sort of innovative new new business that could ultimately create a significant outcome. So it's investing in really small companies today that have a shot at being really big one day. And to your point, it's a hits driven business.
• 6:33
  Albert Bielinko: It's really, you know, there are failures. Failure is part of the reality of venture capital and startups. But there also are really big winners. So a huge percentage of the Fortune 500 companies that you see today, many years ago, probably they received some sort of venture capital funding. And it's not just the money, it's also the advice, the support, with fundraising, the introductions to customers. So they they really worked with venture capital firms, you know, in their heyday and at the start decades ago, and always, it's because they have some sort of problem that they were solving, that they were 10x better than the status quo. And with the work of venture capitalists like myself, they were able to really scale what they do. And so I guess, to answer the question of like, what do we what do we look for? That's a question I get asked very, very frequently. And I mean, we, we are basically looking for magic in a bottle that that is waiting to come out. And that's a very, very elusive statement. It maybe doesn't mean much to many people, but essentially, we are looking for founders that have an idea that is really compelling about how the future world should be radically different than it is today, because there are specific problems or or failures that are occurring today that are really important problems, and that a lot of people or a lot of companies have those problems.
• 7:56
  Albert Bielinko: And so with a change, a new technology or a new business model, that could unlock something really significant for those people. And so so that means firstly having vision and clarity of thought that's very, very important to us, and then also having the execution chops, so an ability to actually deliver the change. So, you know, we sometimes our founders have a long track record.
• 8:21
  Albert Bielinko: They're very seasoned enterprise technology executives, and they've, you know, they've been vice presidents at really big technology businesses before, and then other times, like Evan at Snapchat, which is one of our, one of our earlier portfolio companies that we've we've exited now they are, they are young people with a brilliant idea that others hadn't really thought of or embraced earlier. So so that's something that we look for. We look for an ability to hire a great team around the founder.
• 8:47
  Albert Bielinko: So, you know, very, very rarely can one person build a business of significant consequence. You really need to hire a team. And being able to bring in, you know, surround people with we who have the the ability to support, I think, is really, really important. So we, we look for that, and then, you know, some initial traction, so some signs that the customers really love the product, and the product really does, you know, is is innovative and solves a huge problem for them. It's not a nice to have. It's more of a painkiller, not a vitamin. And so that's a really important assessment. And you know, it has been challenging to kind of make that assessment. So in 2021 when the world was flush with cheap capital, lots of things looked like they were painkillers, but actually ended up being vitamins. And so that's a really important part about what we do, to actually figure out the hair on fire problems that companies can solve, and figuring out the right teams and products to solve those problems. One
• 9:48
  Tim Montague: of your portfolio companies that is pretty much a household name, and the solar industry is open solar. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that story and how that team, that opportunity, fit into your rubric, so to speak, and and I guess I'd love to hear some other stories about other companies, but tell us about Open Solar.
• 10:11
  Albert Bielinko: Yeah, so open solar is a really phenomenal software business out of Australia, but a very, very global business that provides an all in one solution for solar installers to support their business, basically to help them very, very easily, design and efficient solar installation. So using AI, they can very, very quickly figure out all the permutations to optimize the right solar installation for a rooftop. They also have a very integrated platform with financing, so a Pro can issue a proposal to a household to install. Ola with the financing package as well integrated so a consumer can choose whether to pay cash or whether to use a finance offer. And then they also have lots of other integrated services, so hardware ordering, so in one click and installer can choose to buy the gear from their wholesaler, which is a, you know, the first time really that that process, that manual process, has been digitized, and you can get all your special deals that you have with your wholesaler within the platform. And so it's really a software solution to reduce the soft costs of the energy transition. So I mean, we, we, we are really big believers in electrification. We're really big believers in solar. We think solar is the technology that is scaling tremendously as part of the energy transition. It's the workhorse of the energy transition. I mean, I read recently that solar panels are now 10 cents a watt, which is incredible. I mean, really incredible how much they've dropped in the last 20 years.
• 11:48
  Albert Bielinko: And so we think solar will will more than well over 10x annually in the coming decade. It's it's going to be absolutely massive as it already is today. And so basically, creating an all in one vertical software solution to help installers do more with less is very valuable. And when I when I did due diligence, when I did studied the industry, before I made the investment, I spoke to installers who were able to almost double the amount of jobs they could proposals they could issue in a month just because of the efficiency it gave them. So not only is it creating the the the proposal that's all kind of software created really instantly. It also lets them manage the relationship, so the full CRM and everything else they need to run their business. So we think that's very valuable. And then they're also moving through to full home electrification, so heat pumps, EVs, etc. And so we think, you know, we think with the fullness of time, they're building the the home electrification software suite.
• 12:53
  Albert Bielinko: They've also got commercial customers using their product as well. So we, we think there's a, you know, there's really a, they're really a tremendous part of the energy transition. So really, for us, the key learning, I mean, I, I was very fortunate to back birchie And Adam. They're really great, you know, giants in the industry.
• 13:11
  Albert Bielinko: Your listeners may be familiar that they were the original founders of sungevity, which grew to become the number three installer in the US market back in the day. And so they were, they were their customers previously. They lived in the in those shoes before. So they know they had a really clear, huge clarity of thought into what they wanted to build and which pain points they wanted to serve and in what order. And so that was extremely appealing and and we think ultimately reducing the soft costs of solar, especially in the US market, where they're still very, very high, sadly, is a huge opportunity. And so we're really excited by the global adoption they've been having. I think they have 23,000 installers in 160 countries using them. They've got users using them in countries they've never even stepped foot in. So they've had lots of bottom up adoption. And they've spent a very, very long time, seven years, perfecting the product, and they're constantly iterating. So we think they have a lot to offer and and we're, you know, that's the type of business we're really excited to pack. Yeah,
• 14:18
  Tim Montague: I love that you identified soft costs. That is a major stumbling block in the solar industry. Here in the United States, our soft costs are too high compared to Australia or Germany, you know who are similar developed countries with a very similar standard of living, but somehow, it's, you know, almost twice as much to install a solar array here in the US as it is in Germany or or Australia. And that's ridiculous. So we need to very, be very focused on reducing the soft costs. But I also wanted to jump, if we could, to a another company in your portfolio, that is, that is not a household name and and that is build ops. Because build Ops is on my radar, because one of my EPC clients is kicking the tires on that platform. So tell us that story. And if you're if you're not aware of build ops, I encourage you to check it out.
• 15:11
  Tim Montague: But what's the story with build ops?
• 15:14
  Albert Bielinko: Yeah, so build Ops is another great vertical software business. Really, they're like Open Solar. They're both very, very strong performers in our portfolio. And build ops provides software for commercial contractors in the US market especially. And basically it's turnkey software to let them run their business a lot more efficiently. A lot of a lot of parallels with Open Solar, but really targeting electricians, HVAC, plumbing, etc. And they're seeing tremendous uptake. It's consistently ranked as one of the top products in their space, if not the top. And. They have a really high customer satisfaction rate and very, very strong net revenue retention.
• 15:54
  Albert Bielinko: They're also one of these businesses, like Open Solar actually, where, pleasingly, as an investor, they just keep beating their own plans. So you you stress much less at night than than maybe some others, I can assure you that's that's not, that's not typical. And so really, they identified a an area where a lot of contractors, commercial contractors, weren't well served by the existing solutions, which, which tended to focus more on the residential and we think it that is a large market, and it's, it's extremely important for the speed of electrification of large commercial building. So where we're, yeah, we're really excited to be an investor in build ops as well. And we see customers having a lot of success with their software.
• 16:39
  Tim Montague: And so does build ups fall in the category of ERP?
• 16:42
  Tim Montague: Or what type of a platform is build ops?
• 16:45
  Albert Bielinko: Yes, it's an ERP software. So that that means a longer time to kind of get, get live, but it is definitely mission critical software and very critical to manage everything they do to it's a several different modules in their product, and I'd encourage everyone to check out their website to learn more. But it is a deep product. They've launched payments recently, and it's a big, big product area for for commercial contractors, gotcha,
• 17:16
  Tim Montague: gotcha. So there's a couple other companies that we should touch base on, samsara, perhaps, or rethought, and maybe some I'm not aware of. But tell us, what other investments have you made that our listeners interested in decarbonization would like to follow, yeah.
• 17:36
  Albert Bielinko: Thank you. So we've, we've been really focusing on some of the biggest catalysts, some of the biggest areas within the climate Climate Change Response so for So, and one of those is definitely the plastic crisis that we have.
• 17:51
  Albert Bielinko: Humanity has over 9 billion tons of plastic on planet Earth. It's kind of a startling figure, and it just keeps going up. So it's about 400 million tons per annum of additional plastic, of which almost all of them just remains forever in the environment. And at the moment, there really isn't a textile to textile recycling industry. So you you may not be aware of this, but when you throw away a piece of clothing, most of it gets either stays in landfill or gets incinerated, which is different to, for example, bottles which are mechanically recycled. And so samsara is a company that's really trying to create a step change in that and they are the first company in the world to recycle a plastic called nylon 66 which is used in clothing. So they've been able to break that plastic down into its original monomers, so that then it can be re polymerized again within the existing supply chain, and therefore create a circular loop. And so that that is a breakthrough. It's the first time you have textiles being able to be reformulated and recycled as a new piece of textile. And they did that in partnership with Lululemon.
• 19:01
  Albert Bielinko: Lululemon actually made some of these pieces of clothing available. Some jackets available for sale. I actually bought one. I wish I was wearing it now. And it's a it's a jacket, a really beautiful jacket that was previously a pair of black leggings. So it's a pretty incredible technology.
• 19:18
  Albert Bielinko: It works not just for nylon 66 but across a whole library of different plastics. And how they do it is enzymatically. So they they actually use AI to create synthetic enzymes that have never existed in the world before. Your listeners may be aware that there are natural enzymes that exist, but they have serious limitations. So some of them are very slow reacting. Some of them just don't survive very long out in the wild. And so basically, samsar has been able to create AI, use AI to create particular enzymes across the billions of different permutations that can react particularly well and break down the right piece of plastics. And it's really targeted. So there, it works on multi plastic clothing as well.
• 20:02
  Albert Bielinko: It works on mix and dirty dirty clothing as well. So we are very excited by that business. We think Textiles is a is a really, really important area for decarbonization that really doesn't have a solution today.
• 20:18
  Albert Bielinko: So when you think of a lot of retailers, a lot of most of them have really big goals around decarbonization, but they don't have a practical way of getting there. If their clothing is is created using using hydrocarbons and then kind of left in the environment forever. But with this, this is a really big step change for the industry. So yeah, we're very excited about samsara. And then another one I thought I'd highlight that might be interesting to your audience is PEXA Park. And so PEXA Park is a European data. Business that is the global leader in providing data around green PPAs and green fuels in general. And so they're a business that basically is a price reporting agency. They they have a they have a ton of data, and they report on the prices of different of different transactions and green commodities. And they they are really a an authority in the space that they've built that up in the last six years. They have over 200 subscribers to their data. So that includes both developers, independent power producers, banks, investment banks. I mean, really the whole everyone involved in the energy transition that cares about the pricing of various screen transactions, green PPAs or power purchase agreements. And so we, we, we invested in PEX apart because we noticed that a lot of PPAs just took a very long time to get prosecuted. It was a, you know, often a 12 month, nine month or 12 month process really obscure, with no one really having much data. You had kind of 100 different parties with customized NDAs in the in a data room, and no one really knowing much about pricing and and so we just thought there was a lot of inefficiency in that market. And we did a global search for companies trying to improve the PPA process. And really PEXA Park came out to the front.
• 22:15
  Albert Bielinko: They're also actually an advice, a really established advisor on PPA transactions. So they will help companies or utilities that want to engage in PPAs. They will, they will advise on those transactions, and then they they do a lot of other really interesting things, basically to provide accurate pricing that can also be their algorithms can also power a particular customer's assumptions to kind of custom make a price using that customer's assumptions, which is a feature that we don't believe anyone else in the market has. So again, it's kind of a flavor of some of the investments we're making around the energy transition, around the climate crisis, companies that we think have important products that are needed by different people in the industry and and we also really strongly believe that adaptation is one of the big underinvested problems. And I'm very happy to chat a bit more about with what we've done in that space. If it's interesting,
• 23:11
  Tim Montague: the Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, the maker of North America's number one three phase string inverter with over six gigawatts shipped in the US. The CPS America product lineup includes three phase string inverters ranging from 25 to 275 kW. Their flagship inverter, the CPS 252, 75 is designed to work with solar plants ranging from two megawatts to two gigawatts, the 252 75 pairs, well, with CPS America's exceptional data communication controls and energy storage solutions, go to chintpowersystems.com to find out more sure, let's talk a little more about PEXA Park and PPAs power purchase agreements.
• 24:43
  Tim Montague: Do you? Can you paint a little more detail onto the scale of projects or portfolios that they're assisting and involved with? I know that they are. They offer a variety of services, but if you're a let's just say if you're an IPP, is it strictly utility scale, or is this also, you know, DG, community scale, or even distributed generation, like rooftop solar related?
• 25:14
  Albert Bielinko: Yeah, they they wouldn't work on rooftop solar because the scale is probably not big enough. I mean, there is some data that's out there. I don't have it on my fingertips, but it's they have advised on gigawatts of transactions. They have, they have really tremendous data. I can, we can put that in the show notes after this, if it's, if it's useful, but essentially, they're, they're an advisor on very large, on the larger transactions, less on residential rooftop solar, for example, but kind of scale transactions where two parties need to agree for a large project, they advise on, they provide data on, they also have software that infrastructure investors can adopt, and it really lets them understand the risk they face in a world where tariffs government subsidies are changing over time. So we think that's a kind of hidden problem in the energy transition, where a lot of investors have portfolios of assets, some of which are, you know, on on PPAs that lock the price for kind of 20 years. But then there's a very long tail of that asset, you know, decades of power generation where there's where you're in Merchant territory, you have a lot of volatility on the potential revenue you might achieve. And so PEXA Park also provides information to investors, to anyone that is an owner of such an asset, to let them model different scenarios, which is something that. Might, might break Excel, but they have a purpose built kind of module for that, which we think is pretty important as well. So, so yeah, so they're a working very much with some of the biggest players in the ecosystem.
• 26:56
  Albert Bielinko: They've also got s p as a small co investor in the in the business and and also have various BD relationships and partnerships to distribute their data around the world.
• 27:10
  Tim Montague: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 27:10
  Tim Montague: And you mentioned adaptation, and you know, we need to do a reality check whenever we talk about decarbonization, because here we are on the energy transition path. Let's just say we're successful, and we make the energy transition by 2050, by that time, CO two levels in the atmosphere are very likely to be 450 ppm. Today, we're at 420 they're ticking up about one ppm per year, and mentoring the economy brings that to a flat line, right? We're not increasing the ppms, but we're also not decreasing the PPM so we are all going to have to adapt in one way or another to climate change. That is just the harsh reality. So how do you see that world, and what are the opportunities? Because there certainly is a huge opportunity, especially in, I think, the built environment. But you tell me,
• 28:09
  Albert Bielinko: yeah, I think that's a really important point.
• 28:11
  Albert Bielinko: So it's not just reducing our emissions, the 50 to 60 gigatons per annum. It's also this massive, massive backlog, which I think is 20 times that amount at the moment, but obviously it's increasing with every passing day that we're not, not getting to net zero. And so it's a huge, huge problem. I mean, I don't think people realize what a huge problem it really is. And so, yeah, the sad reality is adaptation will become more and more important. And I've personally been quite surprised how little capital has gone into that space as a professional investor. I mean, there are some spaces where you just see mountains of capital flowing into and often they're deserved.
• 28:55
  Albert Bielinko: I mean, I think generally, generally, these spaces are really dramatically under capitalized versus how they should be given the scale and urgency of the problem. But to me, it really adaptation is the space where that shines most fully, where you you just have this really big dichotomy between what gets funded, how much flows into into resilience measures, and versus, you know, what should based on the current path we're on? So one we want to do a lot more in this space. We you know, we would love to hear from founders who are innovating around this space. We think there's a lot that can be done once. One investment we've made is we led the series A or first institutional investment for a business called rethought insurance. And so rethought uses climate change data to price flood risk in the US. So they have created models to basically model the climate risk for every property in the US. So hundreds, hundreds of millions of properties around the US market.
• 29:56
  Albert Bielinko: And basically they're using that, as you know, with the thesis that that is quite an important input, in addition to lots of other things, but quite an important input into the long term flood risk in these markets. And so what's really pleasing about rethought is they've had very, very low loss ratios. And so with that business that is less a business of kind of, it's definitely not a grow at all cost, business that there are some of these that, sadly, venture capitalists fund that, you know, it's really about getting to scale, whereas we think with this market, it's about growing in a in a showing that what your your thesis actually works. You can identify the right risks to take. You know, you can issue that extra policy where you we're seeing a lot of insurers completely back out of markets. You know, we're seeing that in the fire space in California, where a lot of insurers have completely backed out of that market, right? And similarly, with flood, and we think that's a completely inefficient outcome, like within a state, there are lots of properties that should be should have insurance, but they're not.
• 30:59
  Albert Bielinko: They're not currently getting that because of it's not a data driven approach using all the all the data that's now available. And so we think rethought is the right type of model that can succeed. And we'd love to make more investments around that. We think data and software will be really key to the energy transition. I mean, obviously you're going to need a lot of hardware as well, dramatic amounts of hardware, but we think software and intelligence will really power a lot of decisions that basically get to a much better outcome much sooner. And there's also been other other data points on that. So for example, you know, Google DeepMind, I think, has shown that they can reduce the power consumption of data centers by four. 40% which is pretty staggering. So that's kind of software having a significant impact reducing the demand for electricity, and we think things like that are really promising. And you need the combination of those software innovations and the software intelligence with all the physical hardware that needs to be needs to be installed for the climate transition to occur effectively.
• 32:07
  Tim Montague: So let me understand rethought today, decisions are getting made by insurers and reinsurers, and you know, some insurers are choosing to pull out of markets. Florida has been in the news, right?
• 32:21
  Tim Montague: It's getting increasingly difficult to get flood insurance in Florida. How does rethought change the game? And who is it changing the game for?
• 32:34
  Albert Bielinko: Yeah, so I'd say they change the game because they have access to lot they accumulate a lot of data, some of which is their own and a lot of which is very public at the moment, there's lots of public information like satellite data is obviously improving in leaps and bounds at the moment, and so they're able to aggregate lots of that data and apply their own proprietary algorithms to really predict how, how kind of flooding or natural disasters will will kind of progress in the coming decades. And so to answer your question of who do they change the game for? So they changed the game for both the people who are buying a policy. So if you're, for example, a property, a commercial business, who wants to get flood insurance, and you couldn't, you couldn't get insurance before, because a lot of the insurers have made a snap reaction to not back a particular market without really the data. And that has a massive effect on how you can scale your own business without insurance.
• 33:33
  Albert Bielinko: There's a lot of products, like home loans, for example, that may actually not be possible.
• 33:40
  Albert Bielinko: And so it really changes the game for them, and then obviously it changes the game for the underwriters, the the reinsurers. You know, if, if groups like rethought can make better decisions and just be a lot more intelligent about risks they take, then the whole financial system is a lot more resilient. You have a lot less money being burned, a lot less inefficiency, where, you know, policies have been ridden in places where they shouldn't, and then also you have a lot more efficiency, where profitable business can be written in places where it should exist, but it's currently not. So it's like an insidious market failing that's occurring, and it's really solving that behind the scenes, but the the flow on effect is quite large, because you have actual people running businesses that can't do so if everyone just stops and gives up on a market because of the of the catastrophe risk that exists.
• 34:37
  Tim Montague: Gotcha. And are there adjacent markets, you know, besides flood, they're very focused on flood today. Are there other phenomena that they'll be growing into? You mentioned fire, for example?
• 34:51
  Albert Bielinko: Yeah. So I think, I mean, in time, there's a lot of opportunity. I mean, the, you know, there's, there's a lot of opportunity. And similar principles apply in other markets. So I mean, we'll see what they end up deciding to do that, the flood market is such a big problem, you can also, you know, would totally understand if they choose to really focus on that market as well. So we think that fire, I mean, every sort of natural disaster, we're seeing real inefficiency and the requirement for a lot more data to help solve these problems. I mean, we think, you know, I'm hearing of companies that physically try to reduce the risk of wildfire spreading. So, like, clearly, clearly, there's a need for a lot more physical hardening of properties. So whether that, that's with, you know, back burning technologies, or, you know, technologies that reduce the severity of flooding. So there's a lot of physical, physical things that can be done to harden the world as we, you know, as we accept the reality that we're going to be ravaged, right? And then also, I mean, the the reality is a lot of, a lot of the impact of climate change is sadly occurring in developing countries as well.
• 36:00
  Albert Bielinko: And so, you know, I think there's a lot of opportunity in those markets, not only to, you know, to distribute solar, for example, much more, much more quickly and really, really move faster than what was possible in Western markets, because already the economics are so good, but then also to do a lot more to Help, help the developing countries who are facing real, real issues. So I mean, there's FinTech opportunities that I think are really exciting. So I mean, the lucky thing being an investor is I don't have to come up with the ideas. The fantastic founders building businesses are the ones who are really passionate about new ideas. And so there's no shortage of great found. Out there, and that's actually one of the things that gives me the most reason to be optimistic, despite all the gloomy news we consistently hear on climate change, that some of the smartest people in the world are full time working on climate change. Now, you know, these are people that have options on what to do. They can go and make a lot of money in generative AI and get valued at a billion dollars before they have any product. But instead, they're seeing the severity of the problem and the need for intelligence and good solutions, and so they're really focusing on that. So that gives me a lot of hope that human ingenuity will really shine through.
• 37:21
  Tim Montague: Speaking of founders, in our last few minutes together, I'd love to hear about how titanium identifies founders and vice versa. Tell us a little bit about that matchmaking process.
• 37:34
  Tim Montague: What is your experience and what should founders be thinking about in this, in this, in this journey that they're on to fund their ventures?
• 37:46
  Albert Bielinko: Yeah, it's a good question. So we, we will find founders basically, in any way we can. I mean, if a carrier pigeon flies at my front door and drops me a note with a great startup idea, you know, we'll take that referral like we're really open minded as investors.
• 38:01
  Albert Bielinko: So we get, you know, like everyone, we get a lot of inbound. We get a lot of referral from other founders, from other executives we've worked with. We, you know, it's very broad. We have a, I mean, one way that we are different as a venture capital firm is we have an extensive network of different channels, and we've actually generated over $700 million of revenue for our portfolio company so far through those channel partnerships. And so a lot of we also hear of a lot of interesting and exciting ideas and founders through those channels. And so yeah, any any way we can, and then we will also reach out to founders, obviously, as well. So if we're working, you know, excited about a sector, and we, you know, we start researching, and we find, you know, we realize that a company is is doing interesting things in that space. So Open Solar, for example. I mean, I reached out to birchie. I could see, I could see how open solar was really changing the game. I mean, they're now at over 50% market share in in the Australian market. And we think they're kind of over a quarter in the US market as well. So I could see them really gaining traction. And so I reached out as well. So So lots of different ways to find founders, and then in terms of the other way around. I mean, it really is a marriage like, it's harder to get rid of a VC on your board, then then, sadly, a partner, someone you're married to. So I think it's a really important, really important to kind of make the right decision, like, get to know your VCs. You know, I'm surprised how few questions I sometimes get from founders or on how we operate. So I think it's really great to just ask lots of questions, figure out how they work. Speak to lots of portfolio companies that they've backed, both those that work out, but I think it's actually more interesting to speak to those where it hasn't been all rosy, where a company has gone through ups and downs, or a company's even failed, and you learn a lot about how investors behave in that way. And so I think it's just really important to find a an investor that's passionate about the topic you're interested in. They have a skill set that's useful for you. They have they have capital. I mean, we're also in a challenging fundraising environment, if we're all honest, it's very, very hard to actually raise funding right now. So, you know, having institutional LPS or limited partners that support that venture capital firm is increasingly important as well.
• 40:28
  Albert Bielinko: So lots to think about. And I'd say overall, just ensuring it's someone you can work with constructively to build a business for a decade, if you've got a really grand vision and that that's how often we we find that it takes to build something really meaningful. It's an important call, and, you know, worth a lot of thinking.
• 40:49
  Tim Montague: Obviously clean tech is, is a very big umbrella.
• 40:52
  Tim Montague: But what are, what are two or three areas where you are really shining a light right now and trying to grow your portfolio?
• 41:03
  Albert Bielinko: It's a good question. So I mean, one area I'm interested in is geothermal.
• 41:05
  Albert Bielinko: We haven't made an investment in that space, but I have noticed that there, there have been a couple of companies that have signed deals with some of the hyperscaler technology companies for really deep geothermal. And so the idea there is to drill down, you know, say, seven, 8000 feet, where it gets much, much hotter, and then use that, that steam that's generated, together with some advances in oil and gas techniques, for example, in applying oil and gas techniques, and use that to actually generate electricity. That can then be used to power the grid.
• 41:42
  Albert Bielinko: And so I think, you know that that is a really interesting area. These are mega projects, potentially then require a lot of capital. So I think generally geothermal, I think there's geothermal plays a big role in, you know, can also play a huge role in heating and cooling. And there's some really interesting companies in that space, like bedrock energies is one of them, as well as others. So I think there's some really interesting areas in that space that I'd love to kind of explore more.
• 42:10
  Albert Bielinko: And then there's also a, you know, as I mentioned, there's also a lot of opportunity and adaptation. So I think that's a space We'll definitely find, find more of. And then finally, I'd say just more on the on the data and intelligence around this overall space. So there's a lot happening. There's a lot of technologies that are scaling well, and so the need for data, the need for insights, is higher than it's ever been. So I think that we'll see more companies like PEXA park that provides all the decision makers within the capital markets, all the information they need to really be able to flow capital to where it needs to go, and ultimately that, that is what will really work. So once a technology itself, like solar, is cheap enough, getting the capital markets to work efficiently at scale and the capital to go where it needs to, to make it really, really big is really what will drive huge changes to the really alarming figures that you you mentioned earlier. Yeah, if
• 43:11
  Tim Montague: you're interested in geothermal, check out Episode 213 with Sebastian Heitman of extantia. He's the other venture capitalist we had on the show recently, and very actively investing in deep geothermal, it's essentially an infinite source of clean power once you get into the really hot part of the earth and and so it's available anywhere on earth if you have the right cost effective drilling technology, which is one of the barriers right now. We're doing geothermal mainly in areas where that heat is closer to the surface and easier to get to through soft rock drilling. Now we're unlocking hard rock drilling at depth. So it's very exciting for exciting times, I would say for geothermal. Are your solar and storage assets performing at their peak? Some wait for failures or send technicians for costly diagnostics. But what if optimization was just a click away? Enter watch, the cutting edge monitoring and controls platform with watch owners and operators can maximize their portfolio performance, avoid unnecessary site visits, boost production by up to 8% all without expanding your team.
• 44:22
  Tim Montague: Ready to supercharge your clean energy assets. Visit W, A, T, T, C, h.io, and power up your efficiency today. Well, Albert, I think we need to bring this to a close. But how can our listeners find you? What is your preferred method?
• 44:39
  Albert Bielinko: Yeah, follow me on Twitter or send me an email at albert@ti.vc, really happy to chat to any of your listeners.
• 44:50
  Albert Bielinko: And yeah, I love the passion in this space. I think there's a lot of opportunities. So yeah, please reach out and love to build some good connections.
• 44:59
  Tim Montague: Yeah, and check out the website. Ti.vc a very easy URL, ti.vc you can find all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com. Please give us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify. Tell a friend about the show and reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love hearing from my listeners, especially on LinkedIn or on the website. With that, I want to thank Albert Bielinko, General Partner at Titanium Ventures for coming on the show. I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage.
• 45:28
  Albert Bielinko: Sounds great.
• 45:28
  Albert Bielinko: Thanks so much, Tim.
• 45:30
  Tim Montague: Thank you. You.