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Day: January 11, 2021

Quaise

by Collaborative Fund

The decarbonization of our energy sector is inevitable. But the quickest path to this zero-carbon future isn’t obvious.

Which storage technology will win out? To what extent are dispatchable energy sources like nuclear and geothermal necessary to supplement wind and solar?

Despite the rapid drop in renewable energy prices, it’s hard to imagine a world where we hit our carbon targets with wind and solar alone. The limitations to consistent generation and distribution of energy from renewables make a strong case for the place of novel storage and generation technologies in our energy mix.

As big believers in the portfolio approach to energy generation, we’ve been excited about the potential of geothermal for as long as we’ve been investing in climate.

Our first climate-related investment came in early 2017, when we backed a Google X spinout called Dandelion. We wrote about that investment here and have continued to support the business as it has scaled in New York and Connecticut. Through our work with Kathy and the Dandelion team, we’ve learned more about geothermal energy and its potential.

Geothermal is both abundant and consistent. With underground resources flowing 24/7 and available anywhere on earth between depths of 10 and 20 km, the biggest bottleneck to expanding production potential is the cost of drilling. Using today’s technologies, prime geothermal conditions are limited to less than 10% of the planet and geothermal power accounts for less than 0.5% of global energy generation today.

David Roberts at Vox does a great job (Read more...)

Why the Canadian Tech Scene Doesn’t Work

by Alex Danco
This post is by Alex Danco from alexdanco.com

Toronto is not the next great startup scene. Neither is Waterloo, or Vancouver, or anywhere in Canada.  I’m sorry that I have to write this. I really am. I want it to work. But the growing chorus of aspirational claims that “Toronto’s tech ecosystem is growing faster than anywhere else in North America” or “The Toronto-Waterloo corridor is ‘the nice person’s Silicon Valley’” honestly do not portray an accurate picture of what we’ve built here.  To be clear: I am not saying there are no individual success stories of Canadian startups, or that there are… Read more Why the Canadian Tech Scene Doesn’t Work →

264. Starting a Fund w/ Life Savings, Why it Takes More than Just Performance to Find Success, and Sticking to Your Framework (Simeon Iheagwam)

by Nick Moran

Simeon Iheagwam of Noemis Ventures joins Nick to discuss Starting a Fund w/ Life Savings, Why it Takes More than Just Performance to Find Success, and Sticking to Your Framework. In this episode, we cover:

  • Walk us through your background and path to VC
  • What’s the thesis at NOEMIS Ventures?
  • What is your process for investing?
  • Are there any must-haves?
  • Like Brad Feld... you are syndication agnostic... don't care about who else is in the round and you're willing to be the first yes.  How do you get to conviction -- especially not having worked for a large VC fund?
  • Where do you help your portfolio companies the most?
  • In your words... why is it difficult to launch a fund as a diverse manager?
  • What were some of the most unexpected and challenging aspects of launching a fund?
  • Strangest question you've received from an LP?
  • What's your approach to investing in diverse founders?
  • You were recently highlighted by Grasshopper Bank and Left Tackle Capital as an extraordinary funder.  And I believe you joined their inaugural cohort called the Future Funders Institute?  We've seen a few different accelerator-like programs spin up, targeted at emerging GPs.  Tell us a bit about the program.
  • 3 data points...
    • Let's say you are approached to invest in a Fintech SaaS business with $5k MRR, and 20% MoM growth for the last 3 months. The catch is you can only ask for 3 data points to make your decision.
    • What 3 questions do you ask (Read more...)

264. Starting a Fund w/ Life Savings, Why it Takes More than Just Performance to Find Success, and Sticking to Your Framework (Simeon Iheagwam)

by Nick Moran

Simeon Iheagwam of Noemis Ventures joins Nick to discuss Starting a Fund w/ Life Savings, Why it Takes More than Just Performance to Find Success, and Sticking to Your Framework. In this episode, we cover:

  • Walk us through your background and path to VC
  • What’s the thesis at NOEMIS Ventures?
  • What is your process for investing?
  • Are there any must-haves?
  • Like Brad Feld... you are syndication agnostic... don't care about who else is in the round and you're willing to be the first yes.  How do you get to conviction -- especially not having worked for a large VC fund?
  • Where do you help your portfolio companies the most?
  • In your words... why is it difficult to launch a fund as a diverse manager?
  • What were some of the most unexpected and challenging aspects of launching a fund?
  • Strangest question you've received from an LP?
  • What's your approach to investing in diverse founders?
  • You were recently highlighted by Grasshopper Bank and Left Tackle Capital as an extraordinary funder.  And I believe you joined their inaugural cohort called the Future Funders Institute?  We've seen a few different accelerator-like programs spin up, targeted at emerging GPs.  Tell us a bit about the program.
  • 3 data points...
    • Let's say you are approached to invest in a Fintech SaaS business with $5k MRR, and 20% MoM growth for the last 3 months. The catch is you can only ask for 3 data points to make your decision.
    • What 3 questions do you ask (Read more...)

Welcome to the Government-IT Infrastructure Complex

by Continuations by Albert Wenger

Whenever something really bad happens, we tend to rush to do something quick and fast which makes us feel better, but throws out important principles and thus has severe negative longterm consequences. The Patriot Act post 9/11 comes to mind. We just had a failed coup, the risk of which one could see coming from a mile away (actually going as far back as Trump’s election). But now that it has taken place, however weirdly farcical, everyone seems to finally wake up and so urgent action is required. Banning Parler from the app stores and cloud service providers feels good. And legal. Companies just choosing not to do business with someone who helped facilitate a coup, clearly a Terms of Service violation. How could this possibly be a bad thing?

The starting point for thinking about this should be the recognition that one of the biggest accomplishments of modern democracies is that the rule of law is administered by a government accountable to the people, with a balancing of powers between the executive, legislate and judicial branches. Unaccountable power, such as vigilantes, mobs, warlords, etc. are the hallmarks of poorly functioning countries and tend to suppress both freedom and economic activity. Who else might be unaccountable? Corporations that have lots of market power.

Over the last decades we have allowed many markets to become highly concentrated (see this excellent book by the economist Thomas Philippon). But nowhere is this effect stronger than online. Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter have (Read more...)