How it started
In 2014, cleantech was a dirty word. Finding founders and investors to upgrade cities to prepare for climate change felt like the Regina King gummy skit on SNL.
How it’s going
After seven years, our first fund's performance is ranked in the top quartile of funds and our second is in the top decile (per angel.co fund data). But what about climate impact?
We asked our founders.
Less driving. More riding.
How it started
In 2014, 450 Kickstarter backers dreamed of owning a hoverboard.
How it’s going
Each month we sell more EVs than most EV manufacturers.
Future Motion
Automagically designed high performance buildings
How it started
Our consulting company spent hours helping each client design high performance, sustainable buildings.
How it’s going
We run every new design through thousands of options to find the lowest cost way to reach energy and carbon targets. We’ve saved an estimated 5.2 million tons in GHG emissions so far.
Cove Tool
Resilient food supply
How it started
Agriculture is the largest consumer of resources globally and massively exposed to changing climate. We knew there had to be a better way that would not trade quality for quantity or sustainability for scale. Many were skeptical.
How it's going
We are the largest indoor vertical farming company in the world, with four farms and our fifth on the way. Our produce is available in 680+ grocery stores and via e-commerce platforms serving the Tri-State and Mid-Atlantic region.
Bowery Farming
Rapidly expanding the circular economy
How it started
The fashion industry is one of the biggest drivers of climate change, and the secondhand retail industry is 99 percent offline.
How it’s going
Thrilling has 250 secondhand stores online and receives 1,000 new store applications monthly. Consumers love shopping vintage. Revenue has grown 30 percent every month for the last 14 months.
Thrilling
See 18 more examples from Urban Us portfolio companies.
This will be hard
This is the title of chapter 2 of Bill Gates’s latest book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. It’s a clear and thoroughly researched guide. It’s also flawed, as Bill McKibbon discusses. And it feels biased in some basic ways. The book only mentions Tesla once, which is strange, given the central role Tesla has played and likely will continue to play in driving down the cost of storage and electric transportation. The debate and competition is a reminder that it’s hard to predict what will work.
There is perhaps no better example of the complex interplay of technology, policy, politics, media, and climate than the unfolding crisis in Texas this week. Predictably, Murdoch media outlets like the WSJ and Fox blasted the failure of wind power in cold weather (northern U.S. states and Nordics want to have a word). Reality is different. Here’s the governor of Texas pointing out that natural gas and coal generation went offline, effectively cutting power across the state. He then went on Fox News to blast renewables.
Beyond constant misinformation, technology choices, investments, policy, and second order effects (no power also means no water treatment, no gas pumps, etc.), there is an additional problem—buildings and infrastructure in Texas were simply not designed for arctic air. Arctic air wasn’t a problem when the jetstream functioned as it has in the past. And the jetstream would be fine if it weren’t for global warming. This will be hard. And there has never been more need to focus on solutions.
Opportunities
Elon Musk sponsored the $100m prize for gigaton scale carbon capture. NYSERDA is offering up to $14m to decarbonize and create flexible heat loads, especially focused on disadvantaged communities. New Lab is organizing an Accessible Streets Studio to pilot solutions in Detroit in areas like delivery services, micro-mobility, shuttles, fleet management, etc. CapitaLand is looking for sustainable building pitches for the built environment in Singapore. Bloomberg NEF is looking for 2021 pioneers in areas like long-haul freight, materials, and planet scale monitoring. Kibbo and BuildStream are raising on Republic.
There are also 331 current career opportunities with Urban Us startups. Please do share.
Thank you for your interest, support and encouragement over the first 364 weeks. We’re just getting started.
- Stonly, Liz, Mark, Zeev, Shilpi, Anthony, and Shaun
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