Erik Malmstrom

Divestment requirements have a very real cost. This reduces the ability of endowments and foundations to support their mission driven enterprises. As the list of divestment demands grow, at what point do the consequences outweigh the perceived benefits? Hiding at the end of this article is the below quote: Golden admitted the divestment had undermined Princo’s returns, saying the endowment “would have been better off” otherwise. But he pointed to a bigger concern: the pressure to “keep adding things to divest from”. “Fossil fuels are necessarily part of getting to where the overall economy needs to be [and] it would be impossible for the world to not use fossil fuels tomorrow,” he said. “Divestment is a pretty weak tool to change the economy.” https://lnkd.in/g3SeC8rg #energy #investing #vc

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https://lnkd.in/d8Fh2HXR FOAK (and my quote) has made it to the WSJ. Thanks Ed Ballard and Amrith Ramkumar. Yet the WSJ missed the “why” behind first of-a-kind. It is about catalyzing audacious climate solutions - the next generation of Teslas. We all know that FOAK is very very hard. And not every FOAK company will succeed. But the ones that do have a potential to transform their sector. A shout out to all the future climate giants who embrace the daily grind of FOAK and are succeeding. Solugen, Antora Energy, Fervo Energy, Boston Metal, Electric Hydrogen, LanzaTech, CO280, Carbon Upcycling Technologies, NET Power Climeworks, Heirloom, Arbor, Panthalassa, H2 Green Steel, Northvolt, Koloma, Syzygy Plasmonics to just name a few… #FOAK As JFK said, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

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Those who attended the “Scaling CEA: Funding Models and Partnerships for Nationwide Expansion” panel at Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit on June 24th heard valuable insight on how CEA companies need to navigate the challenging financing landscape to be able to fund new indoor farms. I was privileged to moderate this panel featuring Elan Kramer, Generate; Marc Khouzami, BMO Sustainable Fund; and Sue Yang-Krochmal, Antin Infrastructure Partners. The panelists’ investing strategies offer different funding vehicles, ranging from infrastructure, growth / PE, and project finance. To date, too much corporate equity has been raised by CEA companies, a strategy that is not viable in the future, as hard assets, including indoor farms, should not be funded with corporate equity, which is much more costly than other forms of capital (bank debt, mezzanine, project finance). The challenges the CEA sector faces today are mostly due to raising too much capital at too high valuations, and not executing on business plans. The keys to success are to prioritize building a viable business and achieving positive EBITDA and cash flow. We also discussed the need for stronger relationships with strategic partners, including signing offtake agreements with distributors or retailers. Elan discussed how Generate provided project equity for Better Future Farms and brought Taylor Farms in for the product offtake.  Sue shared how Antin had looked at both the greenhouse and vertical farming sectors, but didn’t find many suitable targets as an infrastructure investor as so few companies are close to profitability. Marc provided insight on how the sector had changed since investing in Gotham Greens a few years ago as well as future opportunities for consolidation. As to the future of the CEA sector, all the panelists had a positive long-term view, but many short-term concerns, particularly as more companies are expected to go bankrupt over the next couple of years. Adam Greenberg Arama Kukutai Barry Murchie Dorn Wenninger Gilwoo Lee Jed Lynch Michael Rose Nick Houshower Nona Yehia Paul Sellew Matthew Lohr Randall Lewis, CPA Rob Dongoski Stephan Dolezalek Tobias Peggs Viraj Puri #indoorag #indoorfarming #verticalfarming #cea #foodsecurity #foodtech #food #sustainability #sustainable #sustainableag #sustainabledevelopment #climatechange #cleantech #climate #agtech #agriculture #farming #foodindustry #technology #innovation #investment #finance

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