Climate VC Investing: $200M Fund + 100 Early-Stage Bets per Year

Discover how Collaborative Fund backs for-profit & for-good startups — from $200M growth bets to 100 micro-investments fueling the next wave of climate innovation.My guests in this episode are Sophie Bakalar and Tomás Álvarez Belón from Collaborative Fund.Collaborative Fund is a 10-year-old VC firm investing at the intersection of for-profit and for-good, with a long-time focus on climate. Today, they’re investing in Series A- and B-stage startups from their $200M Collab SOS Fund. Through their Shared Future initiative, they're also investing $100,000 into 100 startups per year that come through top-notch accelerator programs like YCombinator, Activate, and AirMiners.In this episode, we talked about the following:How they make investment decisionsLessons they’ve learned from past investment mistakesTips for startup founders who are new at pitching to investorsTwo of their portfolio companies tackling cell cultured animal fat and smarter EV charging through software that recognizes the bottlenecks of the power gridThe importance of distinguishing roles and responsibilities among foundersPersonal goals of ever greater simplicity in lifeRecommended sci-fi books to readThe power of slow morningsAnd lots moreHope you enjoy!And give Sophie, Tomás, Collaborative Fund, and Shared Future a shout-out on LinkedIn or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people.---Entrepreneurs for Impact is on a mission to help climate innovators grow faster with new investment capital, share best practices among peers, expand their networks, and reach their full potential.Learn more:Climate CEO Mastermind Peer Groups — Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today’s highly curated Mastermind members represent over $8B in market cap or assets under management.Newsletter — A 3-minute weekly summary of climate tech, startups, better habits, and deep work.Programs are led by Dr. Chris Wedding — 3x founder, $1B of investment experience, and Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill professor, with 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself.