Eric Rubenstein is an oil and gas banker turned climate tech investor based in Houston. As founder of New Climate Ventures, he focuses on bridging the gap between traditional energy and climate innovation, bringing a pragmatic perspective shaped by his background in finance and fossil fuels.

In this episode we talked about:

🌡️ The critical need for more power generation capacity and why we need both renewable and reliable energy sources with built-in redundancy

📊 How the ability to measure and monitor carbon impacts drove Eric's interest in technologies like carbon capture, bioplastics, and carbon utilization

🔄 Practical advice for professionals looking to transition into climate tech, emphasizing gradual, deliberate steps and community engagement

🍸 How to turn CO2 into vodka

#climatetech #carbontech #energytransition #renewableenergy

Julia Bialetska is the founder of S.Lab, a Ukrainian company creating sustainable packaging solutions from agricultural waste.

In this episode we talked about:

🌱 How S.Lab transforms agricultural waste into packaging that can be used in food, pharmaceuticals, electronics, furniture and fashion

📊 The impact of EU regulations requiring all packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2030, and why that means companies are rushing to find sustainable alternatives

⚙️ The parallels between today's sustainable materials evolution and the plastic revolution of the last century

🇺🇦 The resilience of Ukrainian startups operating during wartime and the growing recognition they're receiving globally

💰 S. Lab’s impressive pipeline worth approximately 20 million euros in monthly revenue and their current fundraising round of 2.5 million euros

#ClimateTech #SustainablePackaging #Packaging #Mycelium

Jannik De Winter is an investor at PT1, a Berlin-based VC focused on greening the built environment. He recently co-authored a white paper on adaptation tech—the technologies we’ll need now that we’ve officially blown past 1.5°C. We talked about why climate resilience is an investment opportunity, not just a government expense, and why adaptation tech is still so poorly defined.

We touched on:

🔥 How climate adaptation tech is more than just seawalls and sandbags—it includes urban cooling, climate risk modeling, and even giving EV batteries a second life
💰 The trillion-dollar adaptation funding gap and why most of it isn’t coming from the private sector (yet)
🌍 Why Europe, and especially Germany, is ahead on adaptation policy, and what that means for startups and investors
🚰 The wild inefficiencies in water infrastructure—40% of Italy’s piped water just disappears—and the startups trying to fix it
🛰️ AI-powered disaster detection, from wildfire monitoring via satellite to real-time flood tracking
🎙️ PT1’s upcoming event on adaptation tech in Berlin, plus their podcast series diving into specific adaptation challenges

#AdaptationTech #ClimateFinance #ClimateTech

Chris Bernkopf is the founder of Podero, a tech company that helps utilities balance power loads by controlling distributed energy resources like heat pumps, batteries, and EVs. Fresh off a major fundraising round, he's building his remote-first team to expand across Europe while delivering 25% energy savings to customers.

In this episode we talked about:

🔌 How Podero's software enables utilities to aggregate and trade power from customer-owned devices on energy markets

🌏 How growing up watching the same YouTube videos creates a global tribe of like-minded founders

🎯 The value of focused mentorship through programs like Y Combinator in developing founder mindset

💰 Why closing a funding round is just the beginning - it's "registering for the marathon, not finishing it"

🏗️ Building a remote-first company culture with quarterly offsites, virtual coffee chats, and camera-on meetings

#climatetech #energytech #cleanenergy

Jess Clemans is an investor at noa, a VC that is raising its second €250M fund focused on making the built environment more sustainable.

In this episode we talked about:

🎯 Why noa prioritizes founder quality over business ideas or market attractiveness when making investment decisions

💰 How customer acquisition costs for solar installations can reach an eye-watering $10k, while local SMBs achieve much lower costs through word-of-mouth

👷 The critical shortage of skilled labor for solar installation in Europe and innovative approaches to address this through upskilling programs

#climatetech #solarenergy #venturecapital #builtenvironment

Matthew Krayton directs communications and engagement for MACH2, the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub. As someone who both works in-depth on the policy side but who is also focused on execution, Matt is working to establish regional clean hydrogen hubs across several states. 🇺🇸

In this episode we talked about:

🏭 How the Mid-Atlantic region's existing industrial infrastructure, including unused pipelines, could be repurposed for hydrogen transport

💼 The hub's goal to create over 20,000 new jobs, many of them union positions, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 million tons annually

🌊 The critical role of renewable energy development, particularly offshore wind, in scaling clean hydrogen production

⚡ The importance of IRA tax credits in making clean hydrogen economically viable at scale

#CleanHydrogen #CleanTech #ClimateTech #Hydrogen

Rob van Straten is CEO of Skytree, a direct air capture company addressing CO2 shortages while removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

In this episode we talked about:

🌱 How Skytree's direct air capture technology helps greenhouses meet their CO2 needs while contributing to carbon removal

🏗️ The challenge of scaling DAC to gigaton levels - requiring 300 container ships worth of units with current technology

💰 Why carbon removal is already economically viable, but needs a wider cost gap with emissions to drive adoption

🌎 The reality that climate change threatens humanity more than the planet itself, which has survived previous climate disasters

#climatetech #directaircapture #carboncapture

It’s the holidays and, in the spirit of sharing, I swapped episodes with Tarmo Virki, founder and host of NatureBacked podcast in Tallinn. I’m airing one of my favourite of his interviews: his conversation with Jana Budkovskaja, CEO of Beamline Acccelerator.

They talked about:

🌲 Jana's evolution from aspiring panda-rescuer to cleantech accelerator founder

🔬 Why deep tech startups need non-equity funding in their early stages to bridge the gap between lab and market

♨️ An innovative project using abandoned mines for low-temperature heating systems in the Estonian village of Kiikla

🚀 Why startups, not governments or corporations, are best positioned to drive climate innovation

#climatetech #cleantech #deeptech #baltics