Climate Tech Founders | September 2024

Here is your September newsletter from At One Ventures – fully manufactured, at scale.

This month contains:

• Recording from our How to Use AI for Marketing & Sales workshop
• Your non-guide to New York Climate Week, plus other upcoming events
• Portfolio companies in the news
• 3 steps to building production capacity, from EIR Tony Moses

AI for Marketing & Sales

Last month we hosted another session of our Circuit One founder education series.

For this one, we partnered with a few other VC firms to bring you a well-known expert on AI for marketing and sales.

Cliff Worley is a marketing leader and growth advisor to startups. As Sr. Director of Portfolio Growth Marketing at Kapor Capital , he provides strategic coaching to help VC-backed companies effectively go to market and scale customer acquisition.

In the session, Cliff explained how and why AI is becoming a more important part of our daily workflow, and specifically its applications to scale marketing and sales programs. In case you missed it, or if you were present but want the content for future reference:

• Recorded session
• Slides only 
• Airtable with all AI tools he mentioned during the talk

Events

Alchemie is hosting a Digital Textile Manufacturing Tech conference

At One Ventures senior associate Danaé Robert will be speaking at the Alchemie Technology Ltd event in North Carolina in a couple of weeks. She will cover:

• Navigating through the valley of death in the fashion industry
• How early customers can help you
• Investor POV and exit scenarios

NY Climate Week (Sept 22-29)

Last year Climate Week in NYC was a bit... nutty. And this year it appears to be even bigger, with over 300 events. We do not have a custom guide for you BUT we can recommend one! Climate Tech New York has put together a handy map and a full list broken down by category. See guide.

The Drop Climate Tech Festival in Sweden (Sept 17)

If you're in Europe this month we highly recommend attending The Drop in Malmo, Sweden. This year we are co-hosting the happy hour before it begins (The Drizzle) alongside other climate investors Superorganism 2150 MCJ and Streetlife Ventures .

• Monday, Sept 16 | 5-7pm
• Hyllie Bryggeri - Stormgatan Taproom
• RSVP here and we will approve you!

Early October events in London, Boston and Toronto

Conference season is in full swing. Here are industry events that we have our eye on:

• Sifted Summit | London (Oct 2-4)
• MIT Climate Tech | Boston (Oct 2)
• Clean AI | Toronto (Oct 2) *Tom Chi will have a recorded session presented and Analyst Alisha Jani will be in attendance, so if you will be there, reach out!
• Tough Tech Summit | Boston (Oct 8-9)

In the News

MightyFly profile piece in The Mercury News (Bay Area newspaper)

Manal Habib , the founder of aviation startup MightyFly based in San Leandro, was interviewed by a Bay Area news reporter last month. Read the full article and Q&A with her about the company's delivery system that uses drones with capacity to transport bulk cargo up to 600 miles. 

Climax Foods secures bridge funding

The plant-based cheesemaker will use the funding to continue operations through the year-end, writes AgFunder. It comes at a critical time as many foodtech startups face a challenging fundraising environment. "We have very supportive investors and mission-aligned individuals and hopefully will emerge from this even stronger," founder Oliver Zahn said. 

Manufacturing Tips

from Tony Moses , Entrepreneur-in-Residence 

Building production capacity is an exciting part of your company’s growth. Whether you’re exploring Contract Manufacturers (CMs) or pursuing a build with an Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) firm or General Contractor (GC), preparation and internal alignment are the key to success. Without it, you might not be able to find the right partner, and executing will certainly be more costly.

Before your initial conversation with external parties, make sure your leadership team, including R&D, operations, finance, and marketing/sales, can agree to the answers to the following questions:

1. Capacity – What products do you need to make, and how much of each one? How does this change for the first production run, compared to 3-5 years in the future?
2. Financing – How much can you afford for CapEx and OpEx, including conversion costs (labor, utilities, tolling fee), shipping and inventory for raw materials and finished product)? How will you pay for your initial OpEx and CapEx needs?
3. Production – What equipment is needed to make your products? Are there any special requirements for facilities, beyond production equipment (ISO certifications, location, etc.)?

The more focus you can provide to your team, they higher the chances of finding a profitable and successful match.  

Here at At One Ventures we have EIRs (Entrepreneur-In-Residence) that specialize in commercializing new products and processes. We are here to guide our portfolio founders and teams through these exact types of conversations.

Parting Thoughts

About At One Ventures: What We Look For

We back early-stage (Seed, Series A) companies that are using disruptive deep tech to upend the unit economics of established industries while dramatically reducing their planetary footprint. We also look for companies that are pioneering new industries that are actively regenerative to planetary health. Lastly, we look for companies that have significant potential to be healthy, scalable businesses, because the positive impacts we invest in only last as long as the businesses that carry them.