Highlights from Prime Coalition’s Events at SF Climate Week

Prime Coalition was honored to join the 15,000+ guests and 750+ organizations participating in this year’s San Francisco Climate Week (SFCW). The Prime team hosted and participated in 4 key events at SFCW, including two Prime hosted events, which were our Climate Finance Reception and our CRANE Tool launch at the panel discussion, Understanding the Future Impacts of Climate Tech — Today.

Additionally, Lara Pierpoint, Managing Director of Trellis Climate, spoke at two other events, including LabStart’s panel discussion, Climate Deep Tech Entrepreneur Support Ecosystem and Timberline Strategies’ Scaling Hardtech Climate Solutions: A FOAK (First of a Kind) Summit. Lara’s events were also listed in SFCW roundups by the Carbon Herald and CTVC.

If you were present for any of our events, we want to sincerely thank you from the bottom of our hearts for joining us. What a joy it was to see the faces of our partners and friends and to meet new ones! Our conversations with each of you underscored our collective mission to work towards a world where humanity thrives without the threat of climate change.

We’re excited to share our highlights from each of these events!

Climate Finance Reception

We had a tremendous start to SFCW by kicking off with our Climate Finance Reception on Tuesday the 23rd at the Autodesk Gallery with 200 of our closest partners and newly introduced friends. Joe Speicher, Chief Sustainability Officer at the Autodesk Foundation, welcomed our guests and Prime’s Executive Director, Sarah Kearney, shared how we are partnering with philanthropists to unlock catalytic capital and change the future of climate finance, paving the way for a sustainable future. Together with our partners, we’ve mobilized over $300MM in catalytic capital, and this is just the beginning! 

Johanna Wolfson, General Partner of Prime’s first fund, Azolla Ventures, and Lara Pierpoint, Managing Director of Prime’s newest catalytic capital program, Trellis Climate, also shared insights on the future of impact investing. A big thank you to Autodesk for making the evening possible and to everyone who joined us for this dynamic event.

The CRANE Tool Launch & Panel

On Wednesday, we officially launched the new CRANE tool in partnership with Rho Impact during our SFCW panel discussion, Understanding the Future Impacts of Climate Tech — Today. 

The event was a deep dive into the critical role of forward-looking emissions assessments in climate tech and how investment managers and LPs can overcome data challenges and incorporate assessment tools into their investment processes.

Alison Smart, Executive Director of Probable Futures, delivered an incredible keynote on the role of human behavior in climate trends. The panel was expertly moderated by Alicia Seiger, Managing Director of Stanford University’s Sustainable Finance Initiative at the Precourt Institute for Energy. The discussion delved into several critical topics, including the importance of climate impact assessments, GHG impact accountability, and the influential role of tools like CRANE. We also explored how communities such as Project Frame empower investors, early-stage corporate leaders, and philanthropists.

We want to send a huge thank you to our panelists, Samantha McCafferty, Associate Director of Harvard Management Company, which manages the largest university endowment on record at $50B, Keri Browder, Director of Project Frame and Director of Impact Accountability at Prime Coalition,  Jean Shia, Managing Director of Autodesk Foundation,  Sarah Kearney, Executive Director of Prime Coalition and Gilman Callsen, CEO of Rho Impact. 

FOAK Summit

Lara Pierpoint, Managing Director of Trellis Climate, co-hosted and spoke at the Scaling Hardtech Climate Solutions: a FOAK (First of a Kind) Summit, supported by The Schmidt Family Foundation and 9Zero. Lara joined a cadre of leaders in the first-of-a-kind climate infrastructure field in giving 5-minute lightning talks. Her presentation highlighted the role of catalytic capital in helping climate technologies bridge the FOAK capital gap and emphasized the scalability of philanthropy’s role in the funding ecosystem.

The first photo from the event below features members of the Trellis Climate team, including Managing Director, Lara Pierpoint, Principal, Emily Lewis O’Brien, Senior Associate, Lee Scott, and Climate Systems Analyst, Alex Reid.

The second photo was shared by Deanna Zhang, CEO at V1 Climate Solutions, and features the summits speakers, including: Kimberly Zhou from Sightline Climate (CTVC), Pilar Carvajo Lucena from Third Derivative, Ashlynn Horras, P.E. from Nexus Development Capital, Vanessa Z Chan from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Miela Mayer from Third Sphere, Urvi Nagrani from Climate Finance Solutions, Kris Licciardello from For ClimateTech, Jagmeet Kaur Khangura, P.E. from Black & Veatch, and James Lindsay from Builders Vision.

LabStart Panel

Lara Pierpoint, also spoke on a panel hosted at IndieBio focused on the Climate Deep Tech Entrepreneur Support Ecosystem, where panelists discussed navigating the early stage startup landscape, including hiring, DEI, government grant applications, and what funders perceive as critical milestones. Lara also addressed questions about scaling up technologies and bridging the capital ‘valleys of death’.

This event featured speakers and hosts from DCVC and Activate.

What were your favorite highlights from San Francisco Climate Week 2024? Please connect with us if you’re interested in partnering with Prime to advance climate solutions. We look forward to seeing you at future events as we continue to unlock catalytic capital and change the future of climate finance!