Climate Tech Founders | March 2025
At One Ventures
Investing toward a world where humanity is a net positive to nature by supporting early-stage deep tech ventures.
It's been a whirlwind of a year so far, and we commend you in advance for continuing to keep your head down and do the work that we all know is most critical. This newsletter isn't meant to be further distraction... so here are the essential updates:
Events
San Francisco Climate Week
Other Events?
Circuit One
Last month our Circuit One seminar was led by Pari Kumar, our Entrepreneur-in-Residence who has deployed manufacturing lines in over 10 countries across North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa for ChargePoint and Apple. Pari explained how to master the Request for Proposal process to find the best contract manufacturing partner for your needs.
Portfolio Companies in the News
Mojave introduces heat pump as part of its HVAC
The newest version of Mojave's patented, easy-to-install, liquid desiccant HVAC system now includes a heat pump for year-round, energy-efficient cooling and heating, the company announced. Mojave is the first company to integrate liquid desiccant with a reversible heat pump.
Blue Energy featured on CNBC 'Clean Start' series
By using existing infrastructure and labor in shipyards, portfolio company Blue Energy is able to achieve higher production efficiencies. It's also much safer, and that is always a concern in the nuclear industry, Diana Olick from CNBC reports. Watch the full video segment.?
"Climate tech companies must cut back on CapEx," At One's EIR tells Semafor
Tony Moses, entrepreneur-in-residence at the climate tech investment firm At One Ventures, told Semafor that without LPO, climate tech companies need to tighten their belts and probably give up on trying to build their own full-scale factories. But they should still be able to reach profitability by cutting back their capital spending and focusing instead on leasing existing factory space, a strategy that worked well for alternative food manufacturers like Oatly that also struggled to access traditional project finance, Moses said.
Perspectives
De-investing in research is a terrible idea economically, writes William Dunbar , our Entrepreneur in Residence that focuses on intellectual property and patents.
Every material thing in your world is connected to a patented innovation. The car you drive has thousands of patents, the phone you’re using has even more. The food you eat likely too. The way in which water gets to your house and the lights turn on, every single thing.
Every patent has an inventor.
Inventors are not born, they’re made. Rigorous training in a science or technology development environment that follows well planned research methods, protocols and guidelines. Modeling, testing hypotheses, running controls, applying the right analysis to the data, this alone leads to new objective insights.
If you’re a software developer, who left school in favor of creating value without the constraints of academics, know that no software language exists without your predecessors who stayed in school and learned the fundamentals. How to think algorithmically. Those people were made, not born.
To de-invest in research is to de-invest in the inventors and thus in patents. In the end, everything old expires. If we don’t reinvent and make new, we’re left with nothing.
I can’t think of a more foolish perspective than to believe saving pennies now by terminating research programs will lead to a better outcome financially in the future. There is no math to support this theory. Unless your future is relatively short.
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.