This thread is full of great discussions of innovation theory and how startup exit timelines don't match timelines for qs like "when does my long-term infrastructure become solvent?"
But I don't know the sector-specific stories very well (esp metals, steel) so please send any good resources!
There is a distinction between FOIK, pilots, and demonstrations and doing the work of taking those early efforts and outputs and turning it into a repeatable process.
You can't skip the R&D on modularity and identifying the unit of modularity, but it doesn't live apart from establishing demand.
Happy to see so many experts agreeing that the ability of large load customers to pay off their investments is a big question mark. Presumably the Iran war and its destabilization of the economy only increases urgency of protecting utilities and ratepayers from this credit risk. And the complexity.
if modularity is about making something in a repeatable, standardized, plug and play way... well, you need to repeat it, standardize it through repetition, and have a lot of places where you can plug it in and play, so to speak
Related thought: Anyone who says they're working on a startup that's "modular"-izing the production of something--that's kinda a contradiction in terms.
Modularity is a function of demand / econ of scale--not of the production process itself. Producing something once is the OPPOSITE of modular.
I got to say "crashing out" on the news.
Thanks @dianadigangi.bsky.social for this excellent writeup of the capex risks to the AI boom, featuring lots of great quotes from experts in utility/data center financing interfacing with our Bubble or Nothing report.
www.utilitydive.com/news/utiliti...
Argentina, Bolivia & Chile contain over half global lithium resources. Once Kast assumes the Chilean presidency, all three will be governed by right-wing leaders.
What are the implications? I’m in @financialtimes.com to analyze this major political reversal www.ft.com/content/0276...
Strict regulation and public energy planning &finance as under-valued drivers of clean tech innovation and scaling
Great thread. You might enjoy the piece below.... Wrote it last year as a guide for early cleantech companies trying to fundraise
coralcarbon.substack.com/p/state-of-t...
I think flexible tool tech like Sakuu could work but issue is finding enough common tooling in a space like batteries where startups can rent / borrow / use equipment shared by others to try stuff. The goal should be to create a foundry that gets used / makes money. VCs can fund R&D risk.
This thread is full of great discussions of innovation theory and how startup exit timelines don't match timelines for qs like "when does my long-term infrastructure become solvent?"
But I don't know the sector-specific stories very well (esp metals, steel) so please send any good resources!
"designed in California, made in China" somehow ends up being the only working model for this stuff
This stands in sharp contrast to semicon where you try some tapeouts and if it works the really capital intensive stuff gets handed off to a dedicated foundry biz. There is no TSMC of electrochemistry or metallurgy.
Am loving this and issue is the first scale tool is all equity but then at least in EU KfW comes in etc. EU has less vc capital though…. I think buy European type demand pull could work well for this reason.
Oh gosh, I've had a few similar conversations.
"Well, most of the funds making equity investments get things called management fees, which incent them to put tons of money into companies that will take forever (if ever) to reach market and can be marked up periodically....."
The cynical reading is that most of these companies are basically places for VCs to stash money while collecting massive management fees for a decade, with a possible IP licensing play at the end
I start with a couple questions.
1. What's your launch market, and can I see the LOIs or pre-buys from your customers?
2. What's the plan to expand beyond data center hyperscalers, timeline to do so, and traction to date? Show me all the documentation
People usually get really quiet....
The irony also is that I don't think the rush for exit actually makes things go faster. There is tragedy of the commons that it makes for such a mess if no long term plans that things take longer because the technical and infrastructure foundation for new firms is dogshit.
Please rant away or DM me what else you've been thinking about this!
People's stated reasons vary but imo a lot of VC/equity investors prefer short-duration investments because they always want to have the option to redeploy capital quickly to something with higher IRR. hurdle rates suck.
As for the long-duration/debt side:
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the...
I am slowly working on a thesis for why the US is dogshit at scaling up cleantech and, frankly, I think it's going to make nobody happy??
You can’t just do “IRA 2.0,” nor should you.
IRA was a Frankenstein’s monster of energy policy ideas concocted in the world of ~2018-2019. And then jamming in too much coalition-oriented sh*t from the BBB cornucopia.
It was also premised on Net Zero by 2050 with all decarbonization efforts lifted.
Ironically, I think the OCED H2 hubs had the right idea, even if we used it on the wrong technology and trying to raise too many regions at once. It should have focused strictly on the Gulf Coast and California.
Can’t do grants on only one side of the market without customers properly bought in.
So I think the money cannon works at a very base level and can send a positive signal to stimulate sectors, but you need far more flexible and involved incubation of promising tech and companies—free of the VCs that ended up blowing up most of these companies last time.
In short, some IRA tools like tax credits were incredibly effective. Others, as Advait ruminates here, failed to get startups the support they needed.
Not because “Biden people were stupid”…I don’t think anyone appreciated just how broken our financing ecosystem was.
bsky.app/profile/adva...
The very existence of the current fast turnaround VC to buy-out/IPO regime is massively distorting. As long as you have that investment option why would anyone choose long term low margin alternatives?
I mean, that's what my whole thread is about--see the stuff about corporate R&D and forced depreciation of capital stock. We probably need to junk the VC exit-focused model while we're at it.
Thank you so much for sharing!! Excited to read this.
Potentially of interest (though narrowly on the mineral supply chains): www.piie.com/blogs/realti...
