Nurturing Companies that Have a Net Positive Impact on Nature: Insights from Tom Chi of At One Ventures

Hardware to Save a Planet · 23 May 2024 · 1h 03m · Episode 53

What this episode covers

Tom Chi, Founding Partner of At One Ventures, explains his transition from Google X to climate investing after witnessing coral reef collapse in Hawaii. He argues that climate progress is stalled by a mismatch in rates between regulatory cycles and industrial innovation, and that investors must focus on hardware companies with radically better unit economics to overcome industry inertia. Chi details At One Ventures' strategy of avoiding scientific risk by investing only at late lab bench or early commercialization stages, and emphasizes that manufacturing expertise is the key differentiator for successful climate hardware scaling.

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