5-Minute Interview with Brian Wayne, CurvePoint Capital

In this series of 5-minute interviews, I shine the spotlight on up-and-coming fund managers in private markets across the globe. All geographies. All strategies. All sectors

Here's my conversation with Brian Wayne, Managing Partner & Co-Founder at CurvePoint Capital.

Quick facts about CurvePoint Capital:

• Market segment: Structured Capital
• Sector/thematic focus: Climate Tech
• Investment stage: Late/Growth Stage
• Geo focus: Primarily North America
• Year established: 2024
• Location: Los Angeles (California) and Boulder (Colorado), USA
• AUM: $0m
• Number of funds closed: 0
• Current fund size: $250m
• Current fund life: 8 + 1 + 1

Q: What is CurvePoint Capital’s investment strategy?

A: We make structured capital investments in climate technology companies that are at their growth inflection points across the thematic areas of the built environment, renewable energy, resource efficiency and industrial tech.

Q: What are the market drivers for growth in Climate Tech?

A: There are numerous macro factors that are driving continued exponential demand in climate related solutions. These technologies, once commercialized, are in continual need of investment and financing solutions to support their scale.

One macro driver is the massive secular shift in consumer demand for sustainable products and services. For example, the green building materials market is expected to grow to $1.2tn by 2032. Consumer sentiment shift has a dramatic influence on corporations serving these markets.

Understanding this demand, corporations with public GHG reduction targets have more than doubled to over 4,000 within the last year alone. What does this mean for climate tech? Corporations are urgently finding opportunities to integrate decarbonization or sustainable solutions into their supply chains to meet these goals. It’s a powerful feedback loop.

Another macro driver is the legislation driving innovation and economic viability for new and existing solutions. In the US, across the Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Act and CHIPS Act, it amounts to over $2tn of government tax incentive and grant-making activities to spur significant economic development in climate tech.

We’re particularly excited about opportunities in areas where a significant amount of capital expenditure has historically been allocated. This includes optimization and energy efficiency through technology solutions within real estate and infrastructure (built environment) as well as technology that enables and accelerates the utilization of renewable energy.

Q: Why have you chosen structured finance instead of equity or debt?

A: Building climate solutions is not easy. And to really promote positive outcomes, physical infrastructure, manufacturing and hard-tech solutions need to be developed and scaled. Our approach stems from identifying the need for creative capital solutions to support the growth of these companies.

Venture capital is an incredibly important tool to be used to derisk technology and find product market fit, but once a company has commercialized, new financing mechanisms are needed.

Bespoke and flexible types of investment structures, such as a combination of credit and equity, can truly amplify a company’s growth trajectory without being as costly (dilution) as all equity.

This means companies can benefit from an overall lower cost of capital, while we as investors can balance our risk/return profile to have both downside protection and upside via the growth of the business.

Q: How do the companies you invest in handle the ‘green premium’ associated with their products?

A: I’ll give you a direct example. We are an investor in a company called Intellihot, which I like to describe as the “holy grail” of climate tech investing. While it’s not the end-all solution for climate, it does have a material and measurable impact. Intellihot makes C&I tankless water heaters that are dramatically more energy efficient than existing solutions.

Their product has a better ROI over time than legacy systems, given the energy savings, and therefore becomes a purely economic driven decision to their customers rather than weighing sustainability into the equation. There’s no so-called real “green premium.” In our view this is how to effectuate outsized financial returns while simultaneously solving for climate challenges.

Q: How do you source these deals in Climate Tech?

A: We have a very intentional and partnership-oriented process to sourcing opportunities. In the climate ecosystem, there is an overarching element of collaboration that fuels many like-minded organizations to collectively find solutions.

With that in mind, we take a multifaceted approach to finding the right investments. We have long established relationships with other multistage investment firms across venture capital, private credit, infrastructure and strategic investors.

Additionally, we leverage support and engagement of several climate tech accelerator programs, think tanks (such as the Milken Institute where I’m a member of the YLC), trade organizations (like Impact Capital Managers), and are very active in engaging, speaking and educating the market across a number of conferences (with SuperReturn as a local favorite or GreenBiz).

This collaborative approach brings a great deal of inbound opportunities and direct referrals from our portfolio companies.

Q: What hands-on expertise do you have?

A: Collectively our team has broad expertise in institutional finance and has invested in sustainability and climate solutions for years. Given that we are investing in companies’ inflection points of growth and they are at, or have, a clear path to profitability, we are underwriting the execution risk rather technology risk.

It’s important for us to validate a prospective company’s climate technology solution through our thorough diligence process; however, we seek to engage once the tech is proven, and that risk component is materially mitigated. It’s about understanding the ability for a management team to execute and distribute their product/service in a market where we have material conviction.

Q: How are you building your team?

A: We are a recent spinout from Aegon Asset Management, an approximately $300bn Dutch investment manager, where we founded and led Aegon Climate Capital. We have three partners, James Rich, Alena Solonina and me, all of whom amicably spun out of Aegon after establishing and building Aegon Climate Capital in 2019. James and I founded the strategy, which Alena later joined to help us expand. We intend to fill out the team with a few new hires later this year into next.

Q: How do you see your business scaling?

A: The reality is that we are laser-focused on building upon the same investment thesis that we started in 2019. We see a huge and growing opportunity for structured capital within climate. We intend to establish CurvePoint as an institutional brand in the space, leveraging our partnership approach across our companies, our investors and our expert networks.

Q: What are the key ingredients of your success?

A: I’ll keep it simple. For me it’s all about collaboration. Having thoughtful conviction for an opportunity and finding the right like-minded partners and support ecosystem is paramount to achieving an objective.

Q: What valuable lesson have you learnt that helps drive your approach?

A: Persistence. Here’s a personal favorite quote from Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Brian Wayne CurvePoint Capital

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