Electric Vehicles & The Infrastructure Bill

Electric Vehicles & The Infrastructure Bill

The Biden administration has been vocal in it’s intent to advance an infrastructure bill that will help improve America’s critical infrastructure. The size and scope of the bill has varied dramatically over the past 6 months. Earlier this week, a bill with bipartisan support finally emerged. The chart below shows the sector-specific capital allocations within …

Read More Read More

Misleading ESG Ratings

Misleading ESG Ratings

On the surface, ESG-related investing should be immune to attack. The promise of delivering financial and ESG-positive returns are the holy grail to an institutional investor. And yet, the ESG space isn’t exactly squeaky clean. The public market equities screening for “ESG-positive” firms is particularly terrible. Why? The ability to track and quantify a corporations …

Read More Read More

Climate Tech Fundraising Environment

Climate Tech Fundraising Environment

I don’t fully associate Energize’s focus as “climate tech” but there is certainly overlap in our interests and the theme. Two charts came across my thread this morning that show just how much interest there now is in climate tech/sustainability… First, is a chart from Sonam Velani that shows that deal flow into climate tech …

Read More Read More

Home Base & Knowledge Sharing

Home Base & Knowledge Sharing

2020 forced decentralization upon the workforce. At Energize we handled that by revamping our process and focusing on over-communication. This year is a little different. Since ~March we have been back in the office 3-4 days per week. The balance of home/office work feels good. One of the benefits that is hard to overcome in …

Read More Read More

Fast Radius merger with ECP Environmental Growth Opportunities Corp. at a post-transaction Equity Value of $1.4 billion

Fast Radius merger with ECP Environmental Growth Opportunities Corp. at a post-transaction Equity Value of $1.4 billion

Exciting update from the Energize portfolio today. Please see our blog post here, and copied below. (also coverage in the WSJ and the company’s own blog post). Kudos to Lou, Pat, and the entire Fast Radius team for their continued progress. — Fast Radius, the leading provider of cloud manufacturing solutions and an Energize portfolio …

Read More Read More

Vacations…

Vacations…

I would venture that ~80% of the people I engage with over email on a weekly basis are also readers here. So, if I am slightly slower in responding the next 2 weeks, it is because I am out on vacation with my family. Need time to recharge… and am aiming to cap work at …

Read More Read More

Midyear reviews at a VC firm

Midyear reviews at a VC firm

We kicked off our midyear review process here at Energize last week and I held my 1:1s with my team this week. Every year we have a robust planning and strategy session for the firm’s top 5 goals. Then every individual (investor, platform) identifies how they will contribute towards those efforts through individual and team-oriented …

Read More Read More

Industrial Tech M&A: Thoma Bravo takes QAD private for $2 billion

Industrial Tech M&A: Thoma Bravo takes QAD private for $2 billion

Thoma Bravo agreed to acquire QAD Inc. (Nasdaq: QADA), a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based provider of manufacturing and supply chain solutions in the cloud, for about $2 billion. QAD is a leading provider of next-generation manufacturing and supply chain solutions in the cloud. Thoma Bravo is one of the premier technology-focused private equity firms with particular expertise on the software …

Read More Read More