Hi ,
Cities beat climate change with help from startups.
Over 1,000 Urban Us portfolio companies help cities achieve climate goals well ahead of schedule.
Urban Us today announced their one thousandth investment and showed how Urban Us portfolio companies have become the most significant part of city climate action plans, impacting over one billion people around the globe.
See our full update from January 2030.
#goodreading
For identifying the best startups, picking great founding teams remain essential. The founders we like to work with embody founder-market fit and have more than their fair share of superpowers. We believe resilience, through adversity and all seasons, will continue to define the success stories of 2020. At the same time, effective execution is an area for constant review and in a world of distributed teams (we’re certain this is where most startups are headed), it’s worth evaluating the roles of different communications tools, such as chat versus long form.
Cities rank high among the things that a NYT opinion poll of politicians, writers, and technologists are excited or terrified about for the next decade, and ranking even higher, “only one thing matters between now and 2030: climate change”. Consumers have never been more concerned about climate change. And the business community now sees climate as the largest risk, according to the most recent World Economic Forum global risks reports. This shifting sentiment is critical to climate action. It doesn’t just give policymakers the support they need for more aggressive policy but makes climate-focused B2B and B2C startups more viable (this is the bulk of the Urban Us portfolio). And an under-invested segment of this opportunity (and another large portion of Urban Us’ portfolio) is climate risk mitigation and resilience, which, as this time series of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters suggests, is now worth over $150B a year in the US alone.
For the last six years, talking about climate has been hard for startups and funds. Most of the best investors looked at cleantech 1.0 investing as a proxy for the opportunity and seemed to grimace at the thought of climate action as a sound financial investment. But that’s changing, in large part thanks to one of the last decade’s best venture investors, USV, getting into climate investing.
#opportunities
Coord is offering cities the opportunity to pilot its latest curb management platform, including findable and bookable commercial loading zones, pick-up and drop zones for ride-hail and demand-based pricing to reduce traffic congestion. More here.
NY/NJ Port Authority is looking for innovative autonomous vehicle systems.
Smart Cities Connect Denver is a good opportunity to pitch in front of urbantech stakeholders including cities, corporations and investment funds. Apply here.
CoInspect is looking for Sales AEs based in the SF Bay Area with 2+ years of SaaS experience. And here are 16 Urban Us portfolio companies hiring.
#urban_us
Most of our portfolio companies are working behind the scenes to upgrade cities for climate action. But many of them are here to help you with your new year’s climate action resolutions.
Consuming with lower impact: Thrilling is making it easier than ever to buy vintage clothing. Check out their personal shopping experience to access their rapidly increasing inventory. In Boston and NYC, you can get delicious meals at a discount while helping to avoid food waste. Bowery Farming is now available in more places on the East coast—no pesticides, 99% less water usage and by far the tastiest greens ever. Kiwi Bot robots mean your next food delivery isn’t just cheap but also has super-low emissions.
Moving around electrically: Miles rewards you anytime you move around, with growing rewards for low or zero emissions mobility. Onewheel is the best way to shred in the summer or for last-mile commutes. If you’d rather be driven, check out Circuit—they may already be in your city. If you only need a car to get out of the city sometimes, check out Upshift’s convenient and low emission car share service. And if you’re thinking about an electric car but still have range or charging anxiety, Borrow is a good way to see what it’s like to live with an EV for as little as 3 months.
At home, Flair is a quick way to solve hot or cold rooms, and you’ll save on energy too. In California (for now) Swell is the best way to get home battery storage—your utility will pay for part of the install. If you are in Texas, consider switching your utility to Evolve—they make it easy to reduce emissions while saving money. Rachio helps you conserve water in your yard. If you’re looking for a new home, consider a Starcity community.
Coming soon: Park and Diamond folding helmet will ship soon. Treau’s next-gen AC is one major step closer to production, and so are Wright Electric electric aircraft.
As always, please hit reply, especially if you think of startups we should meet or if you’d like to work with any of our portfolio companies.
Best,
Mark, Liz, Shaun, Anthony and Stonly
What’s up with the #hashtags? This content comes from our slack channels where we review contributions from people like you. So you can wait for this newsletter or join us on Slack.