Simran Suri

1 day, 11 panels, 39 speakers, 230 attendees from 5 continents and a staggering 1,700 on the waitlist later, and the first annual Climate Capital Summit is officially in the books! Last week, Equal Ventures hosted top climate decision-makers at the Company in New York City for a series of conversations focused on topics ranging from infrastructure to software, CleanTech 1.0 to ClimateTech, the role of O&G in the energy transition and whether we should actually celebrate the IRA. The Summit’s primary theme centered on the full climate capital stack, of which ClimateTech is just a small portion. With this view in mind, we’re excited to share some of our learnings from the day below.

Our Prepared Mind philosophy at Equal has always been interdisciplinary — we believe strongly in seeking out perspectives across asset classes and stakeholders. And in an industry like climate, that’s been especially critical. We’ve written at length over the past few months about the need to learn from the past, from those who were in climate before it was cool, to do our best to avoid the missteps of CleanTech 1.0. We believe doing so requires collaboration and learning across industry, innovators and investors to bring these stakeholders together for a universal framework for digital transformation. While this means talking to other early stage investors, it also means talking to infrastructure funds, to field management teams at utilities, to finance teams at developers, and to equity research teams at some of the world’s biggest financial institutions. These conversations are the foundation of the Prepared Mind that we bring to the climate arena and the networks we bring to our companies.