As a founder of several CleanTech Hardware StartUps like e.g. www.heliovis.com I met many other Hardware CleanTech-StartUps at pitching events and the whole industry is starving for funding. The analysis paralysis risks constantly that even the most promising go belly-up or are acquired for very little money by Chinese buyers who often just want to export the IP and KnowHow. CleanTech VC-Investors rarely have the deep pockets to industrialize a technology (build a factory) and focus on fancy AI- / Software-based CleanTech instead. Also from my experience these people mostly come from either a pure business or a narrow engineering background that makes it difficult for them to really understand the strength and weaknesses of the respective tech-options. Currently these VCs, corporate buyers who are mostly interested in Greenwashing for the lowest possible investment as well as some government grants for the early stage are all there is. That’s why almost nobody makes it from (large) prototypes (TRL 6-7) to real production (TRL 8). There are simply no competent and deep-enough players out there with this kind of competence and risk-appetite. The free market capitalism I am usually a great fan of, just doesn’t work in this area and hence hinders the emergence of all the tech options that are waiting (or already drowned) to start solving climate change.
A better way is shown by Elon Musk who cut out the middlemen. By directly building a personal “Solution” brand that addresses the interested general public he raises the kind of money via e.g. Car-pre sales that are not yet fully developed and where the factories are not yet built. These revenues act as a very strong argument towards private equity investors (way deeper pockets than VCs but also way more risk averse) and banks (same as PE) and governments - to provide him the financial resources he actually needs to get stuff done. This is 2-4 orders of magnitude more than is available via the conventional sources that make all the fuzz currently but cant deliver.
But how to pick the winners we really want? Maybe a collective intelligence tool like a specifically adapted Wiki to incorporate argumentation maps could allow leading experts (invited ?) to discuss and compare different options - not only with their current technical and commercial capabilities but also concerning their likely future potential. This will likely always be inaccurate - so at some point its just better to throw the dices and run with some options if the problem of climate change is indeed so urgent as we are all made to believe.
As a founder of several CleanTech Hardware StartUps like e.g. www.heliovis.com I met many other Hardware CleanTech-StartUps at pitching events and the whole industry is starving for funding. The analysis paralysis risks constantly that even the most promising go belly-up or are acquired for very little money by Chinese buyers who often just want to export the IP and KnowHow. CleanTech VC-Investors rarely have the deep pockets to industrialize a technology (build a factory) and focus on fancy AI- / Software-based CleanTech instead. Also from my experience these people mostly come from either a pure business or a narrow engineering background that makes it difficult for them to really understand the strength and weaknesses of the respective tech-options. Currently these VCs, corporate buyers who are mostly interested in Greenwashing for the lowest possible investment as well as some government grants for the early stage are all there is. That’s why almost nobody makes it from (large) prototypes (TRL 6-7) to real production (TRL 8). There are simply no competent and deep-enough players out there with this kind of competence and risk-appetite. The free market capitalism I am usually a great fan of, just doesn’t work in this area and hence hinders the emergence of all the tech options that are waiting (or already drowned) to start solving climate change.
A better way is shown by Elon Musk who cut out the middlemen. By directly building a personal “Solution” brand that addresses the interested general public he raises the kind of money via e.g. Car-pre sales that are not yet fully developed and where the factories are not yet built. These revenues act as a very strong argument towards private equity investors (way deeper pockets than VCs but also way more risk averse) and banks (same as PE) and governments - to provide him the financial resources he actually needs to get stuff done. This is 2-4 orders of magnitude more than is available via the conventional sources that make all the fuzz currently but cant deliver.
But how to pick the winners we really want? Maybe a collective intelligence tool like a specifically adapted Wiki to incorporate argumentation maps could allow leading experts (invited ?) to discuss and compare different options - not only with their current technical and commercial capabilities but also concerning their likely future potential. This will likely always be inaccurate - so at some point its just better to throw the dices and run with some options if the problem of climate change is indeed so urgent as we are all made to believe.