During my final stint at KPCB back in 2012 I was researching the OT cybersecurity space. I met with approx. 10 companies and the clear leader back then was Waterfall Security. I loved the concept: bring world class cybersecurity techniques to critical infrastructure. The only issue was that our critical infrastructure firms were still in …
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 …
The costs to develop utility scale solar and wind have dropped by ~10% per year for over a decade. The decline in costs has resulted in the installation of tens of gigawatts of solar and wind and an even larger upcoming pipeline. To-date the majority of economics in the space have gone to developers and …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
I worked at UBS right after undergrad. It was the mid-to-late 2000s and there was an abundance of press (and hysteria) around two key items: Private Equity, and Oil & Gas prices. Blackstone, as the face of mega-PE, went public to a heap of fanfare in 2007. Oil and gas peaked in June 2008 at …