Trellis Climate Leads Panels On 'Achieving Speed and Scale' at VERGE 24
Trellis Climate organized a two-part panel, “Achieving Speed and Scale: Financial Tools for Catalyzing FOAK Climate Projects”, at VERGE 2024 in San Jose, CA. The session was focused on highlighting the role of corporate partnerships for supply, plant construction, and offtake in bridging the commercialization gap.
The first panel started with a high-level view of the FOAK capital gap and solutions from different ecosystem stakeholders. Shreya Dave, CEO of Via Separations, a Prime Impact Fund portfolio company, provided the startup perspective. Uuganbayar Otgonbaatar, Director of Technology Strategy, Grants & Partnerships at Constellation Energy shared insights from a large corporation. Lara Pierpoint, Managing Director at Trellis Climate spoke about the opportunities for catalytic capital, and Christian Okoye, Principal for Emerging Technologies at Generate Capital, moderated the panel.
Panelists on stage during the first part of the panel, “Achieving Speed and Scale: Financial Tools for Catalyzing FOAK Climate Projects”, at VERGE 2024. Panelists included Christian Okoye, Shreya Dave, Lara Pierpoint, and Uuganbayar Otgonbaatar.
The second panel was a case study focusing on Twelve’s journey structuring offtake and securing financing as a growth-stage startup. The panel featured Etosha Cave, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at Twelve, and Courtney Unruh, SAF and Sustainability Engagement Director from Alaska Airlines, an offtaker for Twelve’s sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Lara Pierpont moderated the panel.
Panelists on stage during the first part of the panel, “Achieving Speed and Scale: Financial Tools for Catalyzing FOAK Climate Projects”, at VERGE 2024. Panelists included Lara Pierpoint, Courtney Unruh, and Etosha Cave.
Key findings from the session include:
Lack of exits for companies is an emerging challenge. The market for initial public offerings (IPOs) and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) is drying up leaving corporate acquisitions as the only option for many companies to exit. Startups need support getting the right proofpoints for their technologies to garner the attention of corporations.
Infrastructure investors like seeing corporations on a startup’s capital table. Strategics boost investor confidence in a startup's ability to execute its infrastructure plans.
The clean tech space could learn from the pharmaceutical industry. In pharma, startups need to partner with strategic players due to the extensive expertise required across the supply chain and workforce. Pharmaceutical companies often start as early investors in smaller companies and eventually buy them out, providing an exit strategy.
Sometimes a company’s top need is not an investment. Before investing, Alaska Airlines pursued an offtake agreement with Twelve because they believed it was the most helpful step for the startup. Alaska then brought Microsoft into the partnership to bring Twelve's name to the forefront, which was critical in helping the company close its $645M Series C.
Corporate associations provide valuable support. The Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance, for example, serves as a bridge between SAF producers and airlines, and provides support such as matchmaking for offtake agreements and template contracts.
Follow Trellis Climate for more updates from the team across their events, podcasts, and resources for accelerating the deployment of first-of-a-kind (FOAK) climate projects.
