Convening to define the sustainable future of our cities

2150
4 min readJun 1, 2022

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2150 hosts its annual investor meeting bringing together our ecosystem of mission-aligned investors, founders and thought leaders, all seeking to tackle sustainability challenges of the built world.

Copenhagen, Denmark
June 1st, 2022

Today, dozens of folks took a boat in the Copenhagen harbour headed towards a 300 year old fort. Trekoner had been set up to protect Copenhagen harbour. In the background further out at sea, the crowd could see row upon row of offshore wind turbines, highlighting the reason why they were all convening: our shared mission to protect the planet.

The excuse for the boat trip was 2150’s first General Annual Meeting bringing together our team, our investors and leaders of our portfolio companies with attendees having flown in from Tokyo, Toronto, San Francisco and London.

The day started with a call to arms reminding the attendees that (according to the IPCC) the emissions curve must peak by 2025:

And that 50% of the technologies needed to get us there (according to the IEA) are available and deployable today.

While we obviously discussed the progress of the 2150 fund and the ambition for the next 12 months, the majority of the day was spent allowing 2150’s founders and advisors to connect and educate each other about the joint mission and ambition to redefine the future of cities into one that is sustainable and resilient.

Ginger Krieg Dosier, CEO of Biomason shared her story of embracing bacteria and nature to replace portland cement. Kristian Ronn of Normative passionately advocated to mixing “something that bores you with something that scares you”, specifically accounting and climate change.

Kristian and Ginger on stage

Remo Gerber of Leko Labs and Julian de Jonquieres of Ampd Energy shared their thoughts on how the construction industry could “build back better.” A panel of our investors including Rasmus Nørgaard of Home.Earth described how they are trying to tackle to global housing crisis.

Our Advisory Board member Bjarke Ingels of BIG — Bjarke Ingels Group provided a whirlwind tour of his Masterplanet, a critical redrawing of our planetary system to support our growing population in a scalable and sustainable way.

The formal agenda ended with Bjarke being joined on stage by renowed urbanist Richard Florida to discuss the future of cities.

Cities, Richard stated, have not only not gone away but after every crisis in human history, they’ve thrived. We, as humans, he stated, need and seek connections and this is what the city affords.

Our heads were buzzing with excitement at the end of the day. Speaking as an Advisory Board member of 2150 on the role of sustainable technologies scaling and being deployed at scale in the urban environment, one of Richard’s statements summed up the day best

“We are at the spearhead of the most important revolution of our time” — Richard Florida

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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

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2150

2150 is a venture capital firm investing in technology companies that seek to sustainably reimagine and reshape the urban environment.