As the last few days of 2022 bring this year to a close, we wanted to pause to look back upon the year and reminisce on some of our milestones as well as some of our plans for the year ahead.
Team
Throughout the year our full-time team increased to 16! We invested into our research and sustainability capabilities, complemented our investment team with new talent and networks, and continued to invest into our partnerships and ecosystem to facilitate connections between the industry and innovation.
Welcome to the team Peter Hirsch, Nicole, Max Blanshard, Christopher, Shahnaz, Chris H and Andreea. It has been amazing to see such a diverse set of people (and diverse in the traditional sense but also in terms of backgrounds, brain models, passions) align around a common mission.
In other team-related news: we moved into our new offices in London, alongside our friends at NREP. We are right across the street from Bond Street station and will be using our new facilities for more event and convenings in the year to come.
Portfolio
The 2150 family has grown to 15 impactful companies in 2022. Many of them we identified through our problem-set deep dives. Our work on cement and concrete led to our investement into Biomason at the beginning of the year. Our research on the challenges of cooling a heating planet allowed us to meet and invest into Blue Frontier. We made our first investment into biodiversity preservation and adaptation through NatureMetrics and into climate risk intelligence through Urban Footprint. We backed innovative sustainable construction methods with Nabr and Leko Labs, and have a number of unannounced investments having closed recently or closing soon.
The portfolio now spans from San Francisco to Hong Kong, Stockholm to Boca Raton, Florida. It’s impact last year had already mitigated 277,000 tonnes of CO2e we can’t wait to share the growth in impact from 2022 in the New Year.
Most importantly, we want to say THANK YOU to the founders that allowed us to partner with them this year! That means you Ginger, Daniel, Joe, Roni, Kate and Kat, Remo and Francois and those whom are yet to be named!! We are also amazingly grateful to the 1,193 startups that we engaged with throughout the year in their fundraising processes. We strive to respect the entrepreneurial journey and support founders in what way we can when funding is not the right path.
Co-Investors
Throughout the year we were fortunate to partner with colleagues that have become friends in other funds. From climate-specialists like Energy Impact Partners (2 co-investments), Breakthrough Energy Ventures (4 co-investments), Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund (2 co-investments) to leading tech-first funds like Northzone, Social Capital, Horizon Ventures to other funds focused on the built world like A/O Proptech and Zigg Capital. Thank you all for your trust and partnership.
Ecosysetm
Throughout the year we convened mission aligned minds to jointly work towards planet positive solutions. In September, we partnered with Pale Blue Dot to support The Drop in Malmo, Sweden. Over 600 investors, entrepreneurs, policy makers and climate activists attended the two day event, which is on track to become the preeminent European climate tech event.
In London, we hosted a movie premiere of Invisible Demons, the shocking documentary that brings to the screen the impact climate change is already having in Dehli, India today.
The team also fanned across the globe to speak and network at ChangeNow, London Tech Week, Climate Week New York, Next Web, Slush, COP 26, Women in VC, SuperVenture and on and on and on…
The market
Not all was rosy of course in 2022.
- The Russian invasion in Ukraine, apart from its horrific human toil, has had a meaningful impact on energy security across Europe.
- The public tech market has been reset with that also impacting rounds and valuations for later stage private technology funding rounds. Early stage (Series A to C) Climate Tech, however, has remained resilient.
But there is also bright momentum in our space
- $40 billion is expected to be invested into Climate Tech globally in 2022.
- $64 billion of climate-focused AUM was raised in 2022 across PE and VC.
When we started incubating 2150, “climate tech” wasn’t a widely used term. It is now one of the most compelling and fastest rising verticals with talent and money coming together for impact.
We cannot finish a look back at 2022 without calling out the regulatory tailwind that is now driving accelerated adoption of sustainable technologies, much of it in the built environment. From Local Law 97 in New York and the European ETS pricing the operational carbon of buildings, to the billions in incentives for decarbonisation of homes via the IRA and various national and city-level policies incentivising action.
The New Year
As we look forward to 2023, we are beginning to blend our focus from purely mitigation to the increasingly pressing issue of adaptation. Given the accelerating urbanization will impact the Global South the most, we are also spending time thinking about how to invest or scale sustainable technologies beyond Europe and North America. As we continue to identify the most pressing problems of our urban enviroment, we will continue to publish our UNSUSTAINABLE series to help educate others about the challenges. To support our growing portfolio, we will continue to expand our team. As policy makers around the world begin to turn commitments into policy and regulations, we will seek to work with initiatives like Clean Tech for Europe and others to educate and accelerate the deployment of sustainable technologies.
Between now and the end of the year, however, we will all be taking a well needed break, spending time with our families and loved ones and welcoming the New Year with hope and excitement…
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2150 is a venture capital firm investing in technology companies that seek to sustainably reimagine and reshape the urban environment. 2150’s investment thesis focuses on major unsolved problems across what it calls the ‘Urban Stack’, which comprises every element of the built environment, from the way our cities are designed, constructed and powered, to the way people live, work and are cared for. Find out more at www.2150.vc
