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The Seed
Welcome to The Seed by 7 Generation Ventures podcast.
Our intention with this podcast, is to shine the light on climate tech, investigate the space, and share the stories from the founders, the investors, and the pioneers who are shaping this critical space at this critical juncture.
We hope that by sharing the stories of the guests that we bring on the show that we provide some of the insights as well as community to those who are pushing the boundaries and working so hard to make the world a better place by building or investing in the engineering companies that are going to be able to make that change.
Thank you for joining us and enjoy the show.
The Seed
Pippa Gawley - Zero Carbon Capital
Today's guest is Pippa Gawley, Founder & MD @ Zero Carbon Capital (@ZeroCarbonCap)
Pippa is Founder and Managing Director at Zero Carbon Capital, on a mission to address climate change through deep-science, hard-tech innovation. Pippa has a long history in this space and spent the last 4 years as a clean-tech investor in the US and UK. She is an active and passionate member of the impact investing world in the Bay Area, the UK and beyond.
Zero Carbon Capital launched the Zero Carbon Fund (ZCF) in 2020, to bring her experience and thesis to the early stage UK venture scene. ZCF invests in ambitious teams with breakthrough deep-tech ideas that can scale to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least half a gigaton per year. This target helps Pippa’s team filter for businesses that can have the biggest impact towards mitigating climate change - the single biggest challenge of our time.
The team’s vision is “an earth where a good standard of living is enabled for everyone, safely and affordably, with zero carbon emissions; reliable electricity, healthy food, comfortable buildings, responsible industry and effective transportation”
Zero Carbon Capital’s current portfolio comprises 9 diverse startups, several having gone on to raise follow on funds from some of the biggest names in Cleantech, including Breakthrough Energy Ventures in the US.
In today’s episode we cover:
- Pippa’s own journey to becoming a climate-tech VC
- The complexities and nuances of working with deeptech, IP intensive businesses
- The reason Zero Carbon Capital use a half-gigaton emissions reduction hurdle when evaluating startups, and how this works in practice
- How the team evaluates and manages a diverse portfolio of teams and technologies
- Some of the trends Pippa is excited about, and the ideas Zero Carbon Capital are backing
Enjoy the show!
Episode recorded December 8th Jan, 2020