“It’s just a group of people who care, Roy. Not unlike folks at a hip-hop concert whose hands are not in the air.” 

―Ted Lasso

For your consideration, some ideas from our portfolio companies to show you care or to get you started on new year’s resolutions to reduce GHGs, improve resilience, and usually, get something else in the deal too, like convenience or just more fun. 

Thrilling vintage collections for gifts or for yourself at a massive carbon discount. OneRoof is the gift for everyone in your building and it’s great in case of emergencies, too. Kift is coliving meets #vanlife starting on the West Coast. Bowery Farming produce is now almost everywhere in the US—zero pesticide, non-GMO, from a new type of farm. 

For your home, office or home office, Flair means more comfort and lower GHGs. Have a window unit or considering a mini-split? Gradient is better in every way, from its easy install to its energy efficiency. Rachio is still the best way to manage watering your yard. Your water utility will thank you too—really, there are rebates. Bumblebee transforms your space automagically from office to bedroom to empty room (doing more with one room is the simplest way to cut GHGs)  

Lower your GHGs when you move around. Miles lets you earn miles for all your trips (yes, including walking, biking, ebiking, etc). Onewheel is the best option for zero-emissions coffee runs or to just clear your mind on a long ride pretty much anywhere. Upshift is your hybrid or EV car on demand without any of the hassle of actually owning a car and means lower emissions. Ride Circuit is probably in your city now. Super-convenient zero-emissions shuttles.

Is your new year‘s resolution to work on climate in ‘22? Climatebase has one of the largest listings of climate jobs. 

Climate and Cities

The hottest new trend in climate is cities and companies committing to 24/7 carbon-free electricity. This finally moves the market beyond incremental approaches like load shedding or load shifting. And many UU portfolio companies have built the tech stack to make this possible, like Carbonara, Flair, Plentify, Sapient Industries, ChargeLab, Swell Energy, Gradient, and Radiator Labs. The OG, Matt Rogers, whose success with Nest was part of what inspired us to build UU, shares how startups can help solve climate change. Now even Blackrock CEO Larry Fink knows that the next thousand billion-dollar startups will be in climate tech. This is in part because there are still a lot of not yet unlocked opportunities to decarbonize. 

Another inspiration for us continues to be Tesla, which is opening its Supercharger network to other EVs for the first time. But too much of the discussion about and strategy for transportation decarbonization is focused on EVs. Bike adoption has a bigger impact on decarbonization and the good news is that the popularity of E-Bikes isn't slowing down and that startups like Adiona, Kiwibot, and GetHenry are making it even easier to rebuild last-mile logistics around micromobility. Also underappreciated is the power of infrastructure to lower carbon emissions. Bird observed that nearly half of their riders in Atlanta are women and that bike lanes helped. Even roundabouts help lower carbon emissions.

Startups and Venture 

Another climate tech OG, Olivier Corradi, shares his lessons learned after five years of climate tech entrepreneurship.

The most important lesson we remind our companies of is to make sure they're building a business that competes on every other metric in addition to impact; for example, SaaS metrics and benchmarks. To help beat benchmarks, you need to be great at engineering, product, and everything else. Seeing other startup workflows can help. Getting advice from experts can help too when you learn how to filter for noise.

Jobs and Opportunities

Climatebase is hiring to help more climate-curious talent get hired. SHYFT Power Solutions is looking for someone who is experienced with *ultrasonic distance sensor technology*, or other solutions for *remote fuel monitoring* to assist with product testing and validation toward the development of an exciting pilot project. And there are 482 open opportunities to work with 70 Urban Us teams.

Powerhouse Venture is looking for a Partner or a Principal to serve as a leader on their investment team. And here’s an amazing opportunity to lead building decarbonization at NYSERDA, with control of over $1.5B through 2025 to drive change at scale. 

Activate Fellowship Applications for Cohort 2022 applications are open through November 30. 

And the Climate Smart Cities Challenge is open till Jan. 5, 2022

Portfolio Updates

Miles took the #1 Apple app store spot in Japan following their official launch. Ebikes, boards, scooters, and onewheels are growing at 10x the rate of larger EVs. Oonee is making sure they have secure parking and raising on Republic. Wright Electric is likely to be the first to market for large electric aircraft—they have announced their 100-Seat Electric Plane to launch in 2027, many years ahead of the previously predicted timeline from larger aircraft-makers. 

One Concern is building the world’s first resilience-focused “digital twin” of the planet. Their interactive map can analyze climate threats, assess vulnerabilities, and better prepare us for future disasters. Bowery Farming is forcing us all to look up at the future of vertical agriculture. OneRoof raised $1.25M to build a hyper-localized Nextdoor. Forbes discusses why Flair is the easy way to boost the efficiency of your HVAC system. 

Shout out to multiple UU portfolio founders featured in this year’s Forbes 30 under 30 list—Jimmy Rojoas (EvolOH, formerly Origen Hydrogen), Zak Lefervre (ChargeLab), Phyo Aung Kyaw and Grayson Zulauf (Resonant Link), and Selin Sonmez and Niko Georgantas (OneRoof). If you ever have doubts about whether we’re going to solve climate change, one suggestion to restore your faith - take a look at what these folks are building.

UU News

Recently on Captial Radio Podcast, we shared are our thoughts on eight years of climate investing.

Happy holidays and see you in ‘22.  

Edited by: Shaun

With support from Shilpi, Stonly, Mark, Zeev, Ashtynn, and Yana

How did we create this update? The 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. You can find our previous updates here.