Tom Steyer-backed VC fund aims to solve climate issues

2021 climate tech deals in the U.S. have already reached $11 billion, according to Pitchbook data. Earthshot Ventures Founder & CEO Dawn Lippert joins Yahoo Finance live to discuss how her VC fund is working to combat global warming.

Video transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, concerns around the impact of climate change have helped fuel a record $11 billion in climate tech deals so far this year. Our next guest is a Hawaii-based venture capitalist who just launched a new climate technology fund backed by billionaire heavyweights like Tom Steyer. Elemental Accelerator Founder and CEO, Dawn Lippert, joining us now.

Don, congratulations on this launch. This is certainly a big one in a year filled with huge climate tech deals. Talk to me about how your fund is differentiating itself from some of the other ones.

DAWN LIPPERT: Thanks so much for having me, Akiko. And we are so excited about the momentum this year in investing in climate technology. Really on track to beat last year by a long ways. It's very exciting to see the entrepreneurs coming into the space. So Earthshot Ventures, as you mentioned, is spinning out of our non-profit, Elemental Accelerator, which operates globally.

And one of the key differences is that at Elemental, we've funded over 110 entrepreneurs and startups to not only grow their companies, but to actually deploy projects in local communities. And so, it's this network of entrepreneurs, the 2,000 co-investors that we've invested with over the last 12 years. They give us really amazing intel into what's actually working on the ground, and that helps inform what might make the best climate investment for the future.

AKIKO FUJITA: So what are some of the best investments? What is the technology that you're helping deploy now?

DAWN LIPPERT: We're really excited about technology in a number of sectors. Earthshot Ventures invests across energy, mobility, food and agriculture, and industry and carbon. So really, all of the sectors that impact our current emissions and our future climate crisis. We're excited about technologies that intersect in between those sectors and to bring new kinds of technology into them.

So you mentioned that we have Tom Steyer is one of our investors, we have John Doerr, Chris Cox from Facebook, Emerson Collective, Microsoft. So we have a lot of really amazing and deep technology expertise and talent at the table. And mixing that, so artificial intelligence, machine-learning, mixing these kinds of technologies with what we're seeing on the climate side needs to be solved can be really powerful drivers of change. So we're excited about technologies across all of those sectors.

AKIKO FUJITA: You're also unique in that you're based out of Hawaii. We often talk about VCs that are based in the Valley. Talk to me a bit about the impact you have seen from climate on the ground there and how that has helped shape your priorities in terms of where you think the money needs to flow.

DAWN LIPPERT: So, and you said, I mean, we need a lot of money in this sector. We need over $2 trillion to address the climate crisis. So Earthshot Ventures is our $60 million first closed where a piece of that, but our goal is to be really catalytic and bringing other financiers and other capital to the table as well.

We have a presence in the Bay Area. And as you say, I'm based in Honolulu. So we have a Hawaii presence as well. And one of the things that we've seen on the ground in Hawaii is that we will be able to move much faster and more effectively together if we really involve people across our community.

So at Elemental, we've deployed projects across front line communities, we've deployed projects globally, and really try to understand what it takes to help scale climate technology. And we like to think of it that the innovation and coming up with something new is about half the battle, but actually being able to deploy it on the ground, scale it up, bring it into people's homes, businesses, schools, and streets, that's the other half. So really understanding both parts of that equation is where we live and breathe and where we love to invest in entrepreneurs that share that passion.

AKIKO FUJITA: And Dawn, increasingly we have heard those like President Biden. We heard from Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, there earlier saying that innovation is such a big part of tackling this. And you know that, you've been in this space. But I wonder how you're looking at the role of the private sector in tackling this. Do you see increasingly a partnership with governments, with lawmakers, or do you see the innovation separate from that? How are you looking at the overall structure?

DAWN LIPPERT: I would say innovation is absolutely a piece of this overall structure. We've actually worked really hard to bring innovation closer to policymakers and bring the proof points and things that we're learning on the ground closer to policy so that we start really closing that gap between technology and policy.

We have some incredible tailwinds at our back right now in climate. And in the 15 years that I've been in this space, it is the most exciting time with the most momentum and stars aligned across the public and private sectors to make real progress. So that gives me a lot of reason for optimism.

We saw earlier today another 86 companies joining the Climate Pledge. That brings it to over 200 companies joining the Climate Pledge. Microsoft, one of our limited partners in the fund, has a carbon negative pledge by 2030. So we're seeing enormous private sector movement into this space in a really durable and at scale way that we haven't really seen in the past.

At the same time, we're seeing alignment on the public sector in government from local, state, national, and international players that is driving toward climate action. So we need absolutely more on both fronts, we need public and private sector working together in sync to do the things that they each do really, really well to be effective here. But we're really excited about that alignment.

And then finally what that means for this innovation space is that we're seeing a mountain of talent that we have never seen before in the 15 years I've been doing this coming in from the traditional tech world, from traditional product, from Netflix, Google, and Facebook, people who see what's happening in climate and want to be part of tackling it.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah. Well if the $11 billion we've seen so far in the space is any indication, there's going to be a lot of interest in money flowing in that direction. Dawn Lippert, Earthshot Ventures founding partner and Elemental Accelerator founder and CEO, really appreciate the time today.