Steve Gorman, MBA

Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) illustrates the current "readiness" of #ClimateTechs + their potential impact on carbon reduction. As shown, many techs are at an early stage of being able to have a material impact. Concerningly, some tech funds recently returned capital back to investors recently + closed their funds - citing inability to fund capital intensive techs, found in areas like ClimateTech. This in part may be contributing to the $2 trillion shortfall in ClimateTech, that Deloitte estimates. What this may mean for the future? - The migration of LPs to global, super VC funds within ClimateTech, given the large capital pools needed to fund tech development - Greater specialization from smaller funds, energizing more niche elements of the ClimateTech market - but also altering their / LP's risk profile - A greater role to be played by debt financing in funding growth entities at an earlier stage - impacting cashflow dynamics Will be an interesting space to watch moving forward. We at The Proptech Connection are constantly working with all parts of the Proptech ecosystem. From the leading LPs, funds, techs and adopters in market, providing an independent view. Reach out to us today to find out how we can help. #InvestorTrends #Strategy #Global Ivo van Breukelen Stuart Daun Kiki C. Ethan Ward

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https://lnkd.in/eGnqfMwF Rosy Soil Raises $3.6M in Seed Funding Rosy Soil, a NYC-based sustainable soil company created to offset the negative environmental impact of producing traditional peat-based potting mixes, raised $3.6M in Seed funding. Backers included Draper Associates, Superorganism, Climate Capital, and Boost VC. Rosy Soil is also backed by Seth Goldman, co-founder of Honest Tea, Brandin Cohen, founder of LiquidIV and Ben Chesler, co-founder of Imperfect Foods. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its product development efforts, expand its retail presence, and grow its team. Founded by Chad Massura, Rosy Soil is a sustainable soil company dedicated to improving the gardening industry via performing soils. Empowered by biochar, the soils promote plant health, reduce environmental impact and are perfect for a variety of plants including houseplants, cacti, succulents, and seedlings. It is available online, at Target, and at select retailers nationwide.

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𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 = 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬❓ Startups now face unprecedented investor demands... ➥Slowing seed-stage investments: seed-stage investments are decreasing, while median pre-seed and seed deal sizes have reached $1 million and $3.1 million, respectively. ➥Increased investor expectations: investors are acquiring larger stakes as compensation for the risks, expecting more detailed metrics and reduced risk profiles. ➥Role of accelerators: strong foundational growth can significantly enhance a startup's chance of success in this challenging environment. Startups are pressured to provide potential investors with more information and higher metrics and to show a lessened risk profile. Source: "2024 US Venture Capital Outlook: Midyear Update" by Pitchbook. #venturecapital #startup #investments #vc #accelerator

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When a startup tells you they're turning sunlight into seafood, you listen! 🌊 Meet Blue Planet Ecosystems and Paul Schmitzberger, who are REVOLUTIONIZING aquaculture with location-independent farms. We recently had the pleasure of helping them craft their pitch deck, transforming complex technology into a clear, compelling narrative 🐟 Blue Planet Ecosystems develops automated, modular aquaculture systems based on a circular economy. These systems combine cutting-edge technology and sustainable practices to make fish production efficient and environmentally friendly. Monitoring and optimizing the entire life cycle of fish is possible through their unique system, improving both the quality and sustainability of fish farming. ✍️ When creating their pitch deck, we worked intensively with Blue Planet Ecosystems to develop a clear and compelling storyline that gets to the heart of their complex systems and vision. We focused on presenting their solutions' market positioning and added value, ensuring that every detail reflected Blue Planet Ecosystems' unique expertise. The result is investor marketing materials optimally crafted to generate interest from potential partners. Here’s what Blue Planet Ecosystems had to say about working with us! 📣 "Magdalena and her team have been passionate and dedicated from day 1. They got to grips with our complex subject matter incredibly quickly and managed to get straight to the heart of the matter. Through detailed feedback, clear guidelines and industry-specific instructions, we were able to put together a next-level read deck in close and reliable cooperation. An absolutely great process!” – Paul Schmitzberger, CEO @ Blue Planet Ecosystems. Want to get involved in the future of sustainable food production? Paul Schmitzberger is always excited to connect with investors or fellow innovators – reach out! Check out some highlights from the Blue Planet Ecosystems pitch deck below 👇 #aquaculture #sustainability #innovativetechnology #blueplanetecosystems #pitchdeck #startupgrowth

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You are missing the point. You will never get funded by a VC. Why? VC firms want: 100X return on Seed investments. 15X return on Series A funding. 5X return on late-stage funding. All in 5 years. Why? 65% of VC backed companies fail to return their original investment. 50% of VC backed companies fail to return ANY invested capital. They go out of business. You need to show your competition is making these returns and why you will be able to. Saying you can or showing projections won't work. REG D or REG A+ offer a better alternative. Contact us today. Discover your options. We advise companies raising $10 million or more and where to find the money. Are you chasing the VC dream?

Today's Boring Business: Fuel Delivery & Service - $443K Cashflow - New Hampshire - Day 29 of "50 States In 50 Days" Note: We do not represent this deal, highlighting for informational purposes only for viewers What Do They Do? 1. Residential heating oil delivery 2. Service + maintenance contracts 3. Propane tank installation + refill Highlights: 1. Decades old brand name in North NH 2. Recession-resistant essential service 3. High barriers to entry (regulations) Risks/ Concerns: 1. Customer churn post-acquisition 2. Hidden environmental liabilities 3. Outdated or poorly maintained fleet #SMB #ETA #finance #Cashflow #investing #search #searchfund #privateequity #microprivateequity #smallbusiness #venturecapital #vc #entrepreneur #business #businessowner #fueldelivery #newhampshire #servicecompany Disclaimer: Hypothetical and illustrative only. Please do your own research (DYOR) or work with tax and legal professionals before making a decision. This video are intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice, nor should be construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any security by SMB PE LLC or any third party.6m

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🚀 Investor Data Room Checklist + Template Are you raising capital? Are you getting closer to entering Due Diligence? If so, you need a Data Room. A data room is a collection of files that startups put together for investors. It’s meant to provide prospective investors with all of the confidential and sensitive information required to underwrite an investment… your IP, Product Roadmap, Analytics, etc. It’s typically asked for around the time you get a term sheet. So what should you include in a data room? Morgan Cheatham, a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners, shared the answer: Your data room should include all key info on: 🔹 Financials 🔹 Market Research 🔹 Sales and Marketing 🔹 Product (+Engineering) 🔹 Corporate Governance 🔹 Industry-specific: Scientific or Clinical Data (Check out the checklist below for more specifics.) 💡 Pro-Tip: The best data rooms are concise, accurate, and built with high integrity. So here’s what your data room shouldn’t do: ❌ Share fragmented data or unconventional analyses ❌ Underestimate the competitive landscape ❌ Obfuscate important data granularity ❌ Provide too much data Looking to build your own data room? We have a very simple but powerful one in our platform, Foundersuite.com, or check out the link to a Data Room Notion template in the first comment 👇👇 Nathan Beckord – I help startups raise capital through software, content, and processes #venturecapital #founders #startups #fundraising

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What I learned this week…. If you have ever sailed through Woods Hole in Cape Cod during the shift in maximum tidal flow, you have seen the array of eddy currents as the shoreline boundary layer and Atlantic Ocean fight to rebalance the billions of gallons flowing through twice a day. The velocity of a sailboat and the tide current are nearly the same, making for slow progress if you are going against the 5-knot tide. It gives you a slow-motion sense of what it must be like inside a tornado. A tornado of Food and Health fighting for longevity, competing with climate change, for the top of mind in a never-ending disaster movie. The combination of reduced venture investing, increased healthcare costs, inflation, unfunded social mandates, disruptions in consumer behavior from Ozempic, and the government's ability to drop $20B into the middle of a market trying to allocate capital properly is an unprecedented array of great and terrible ideas all at once, with no one at the rudder to steer us to a predictable outcome. No one but the forces of Creative Destruction. 1) The forces of Gales of Creative Destruction will replace cheap calories with affordable nutrition but may fail if incumbent cheap calories get cheaper more quickly than nutrition gets better. Or if affordable nutrition fails to unlock the healthcare cost of poor nutrition in consumer price elasticity. 2) Maybe Sustainable Aviation Fuel gets so much funding that a “Baptist and Bootleggers” cabal forms between farming, oil, and climate communities into a singular force reminiscent of prohibition. 3) The price of farmland is now directly linked to the price of energy: Brad Fruth, Carter Malloy, Luca Fabbri 4) In an inflationary market, subsidizing demand is terrible public policy. 5) If GDP growth is tied to Total Factor Productivity, TFP linked to AI innovation and AI innovation linked to energy, then GDP growth is tied to plentiful, affordable, and secure energy (QED) - see nuclear power. 6) Starlinks v2 laser interconnect backhaul reduces latency vs. terrestrial networks, permitting real-time control of farm machinery from operators in India. 7) Jevon Paradox observes that increased efficiency in resource use leads to higher overall consumption of that resource as it becomes cheaper and more accessible. 8) Will precision spraying and data around nitrogen use efficiency keep market share from biologic crop enhancement? What is the unmet global market for the application of more nitrogen? (see Jevon) 9) Since the early 1990s, on average, another 100k people have escaped extreme poverty every day. They need more food and nitrogen. 10) It takes at least 10 years to be an overnight success (See Microsoft on Acquire) 11) Would we have the dinosaurs back if we spent hundreds of billions of dollars on R&D? And would that take less time than making DAC CO2 capture scale efficiently? (H/T Adam Ozimek) #foodishealth Ellen Brown Katie Stebbins Russ Conser

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We’re pleased to announce our newest investment from our pre-seed, Tributary Fund, AI-Ops. Based in Mobile, Alabama, AI-Ops uses deep reinforcement learning to optimize autonomous control models for various heavy industries (e.g., petroleum refineries, water treatment facilities, pharmaceutical manufacturing, etc.). The company’s AI models seamlessly integrate into existing control systems, adding various capabilities, including anomaly detection, time series forecasting, soft transmitters, and deep reinforcement learning for autonomous control actions. Users are empowered to develop and integrate their own AI models or opt for more customized models tailored to their process data. These models can then either directly control processes or offer actionable suggestions to operators and provide substantial ROI via (among other things) reduced process disruptions/increased uptime, as well as labor, energy, and other cost reductions. AI-Ops’ technology is truly impressive in its ability to quickly and comprehensively evaluate highly complex control systems (across a wide variety of industries and vendors), identify process bottlenecks and other areas of inefficiency at a granular level, and generate the detailed process adjustments needed to address them. We believe this will not only be a material driver of sales efficiency (even with very large enterprise customers) but also a significant barrier to entry for potential competitors down the road. While it’s still relatively early days for AI-Ops, we’re encouraged by the rate of customer adoption and the caliber of those customers (multiple Fortune 1,000 companies are already using the product). https://ai-op.com/

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"(The) transition to net zero emissions... estimated cost.... Roughly $275 trillion investment in physical assets from 2021 to 2050, or approximately $9.2 trillion annually - cites a new report by King’s College, London. "In 2023, governments earned $74 billion through Emissions Trading Systems (ETS). Then, there are voluntary carbon markets that trade carbon credits, creating economic opportunities and pushing governments and corporations to invest in low carbon infrastructure and technologies" The challenge is huge, but so is the opportunity (over $1.2Tn / yr for banks). A once-in-lifetime chance to invest in sectors with gigantic positive externalities, which dwarf any negative outcomes they can create. https://lnkd.in/eumcQGwM

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📢 Some big news this week that marks another pivotal step in the evolution of carbon markets… The Biden administration, led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, will be unveiling the first broad US government guidelines on the use of carbon credits as part of decarbonization strategies. It’s a much needed step that will promote high-integrity carbon markets, and boost corporate confidence in using carbon credits. The Bloomberg article's sources suggest the upcoming framework will align with the government’s stance that: “voluntary carbon markets have a role in reaching net zero, as long as they promote high-integrity emissions reductions and channel meaningful amounts of capital into nature-based projects today as well as carbon-removal technologies in the future.” And that is the key. There is no silver bullet for the climate crisis. Whatever the critics may say about carbon credits, more transparency, clarity and official endorsement on their use will serve to unlock billions of much needed corporate dollars for carbon projects. Couple this news with recent initiatives by major tech companies like the Symbiosis Coalition of Google, Meta, Microsoft and Salesforce and we’re starting to stride in the right direction. Read more and sign up for the live stream: https://lnkd.in/ddDRA8yd #carbonmarkets #carboncredits #naturalcapital #climateaction #breakingnews

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I'm crowdsourcing a better investor database for Boston area capital because founders and VCs shouldn't have to pay Pitchbook and Crunchbase for a basic directory. A few months ago, I assembled a list of emerging managers in the New England region and was surprised that this hadn't been done before. I've also had founders repeatedly ask me, "Who invests in ____?" and I don't exactly know. I put together an initial list of about 90 firms, angel groups, family offices, and accelerators. While the list isn't perfect, it's a start. If you're a founder, investor, or community member, take a moment to help make this data just 1% better. I'll keep the editing permissions open as long as everyone stays friendly and civil. https://lnkd.in/gFt6bZPp 186 Ventures .406 Ventures 3CC | Third Culture Capital AlleyCorp DeepTech Argon Ventures Athenian VC Baukunst Blindspot Ventures Branch Venture Group Broom Ventures C10 Labs Companyon Ventures Cybernetix Ventures Encoded Ventures Equal Opportunity Ventures First Star Ventures One Way Ventures NextView Ventures Raiz Capital Hyperplane Glasswing Ventures Techstars Boston Accelerator MassChallenge Innospark Ventures New North Ventures Underscore VC York IE

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Those who attended the “Scaling CEA: Funding Models and Partnerships for Nationwide Expansion” panel at Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit on June 24th heard valuable insight on how CEA companies need to navigate the challenging financing landscape to be able to fund new indoor farms. I was privileged to moderate this panel featuring Elan Kramer, Generate; Marc Khouzami, BMO Sustainable Fund; and Sue Yang-Krochmal, Antin Infrastructure Partners. The panelists’ investing strategies offer different funding vehicles, ranging from infrastructure, growth / PE, and project finance. To date, too much corporate equity has been raised by CEA companies, a strategy that is not viable in the future, as hard assets, including indoor farms, should not be funded with corporate equity, which is much more costly than other forms of capital (bank debt, mezzanine, project finance). The challenges the CEA sector faces today are mostly due to raising too much capital at too high valuations, and not executing on business plans. The keys to success are to prioritize building a viable business and achieving positive EBITDA and cash flow. We also discussed the need for stronger relationships with strategic partners, including signing offtake agreements with distributors or retailers. Elan discussed how Generate provided project equity for Better Future Farms and brought Taylor Farms in for the product offtake.  Sue shared how Antin had looked at both the greenhouse and vertical farming sectors, but didn’t find many suitable targets as an infrastructure investor as so few companies are close to profitability. Marc provided insight on how the sector had changed since investing in Gotham Greens a few years ago as well as future opportunities for consolidation. As to the future of the CEA sector, all the panelists had a positive long-term view, but many short-term concerns, particularly as more companies are expected to go bankrupt over the next couple of years. Adam Greenberg Arama Kukutai Barry Murchie Dorn Wenninger Gilwoo Lee Jed Lynch Michael Rose Nick Houshower Nona Yehia Paul Sellew Matthew Lohr Randall Lewis, CPA Rob Dongoski Stephan Dolezalek Tobias Peggs Viraj Puri #indoorag #indoorfarming #verticalfarming #cea #foodsecurity #foodtech #food #sustainability #sustainable #sustainableag #sustainabledevelopment #climatechange #cleantech #climate #agtech #agriculture #farming #foodindustry #technology #innovation #investment #finance

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1st of 5x investment (or acquisition) themes that should rip in Micro SaaS... Sustainable Agriculture and Food Tech // DEFINITION Technologies and practices that promote sustainable farming, food production, and distribution. // GROWTH DRIVERS Increasing demand for sustainable and organic food, advancements in agricultural technology, and environmental concerns. // FOCUS: - AgTech: Precision farming, vertical farming, and automated irrigation systems. - Hydroponics and Aquaculture: Soil-less farming and sustainable fish farming. - Organic and Local Food Production: Platforms and technologies supporting local, organic food markets. Anyone going hard at a similar theme? #microsaas

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If you missed SEED CRUST: State of the Seed Venture Market event last week, you can download the report and watch the recording. Here's what I expect to see in the coming year as it relates to Seed *phase* venture capital: 🐖 The "pig in the pipe" (the exit backlog) will clear this year, which is great for late stage, but it won't be felt at Seed until next year. 🔁 Which means more of the same this year for Seed: more shut downs 😢, more extension rounds 🌉, more pressure on founders to stretch their existing capital 💸. It also means the bifurcation at Seed will continue through this year. 💫 3-Round Seed is the new normal. Pre-Seed, Seed, Seed 2, call it what you will, Series A isn't coming back down to $20-30m valuations. Mind your dilution to make that work. 📈 Seed 2 valuations will continue to go up over the next year, covering territory in the $20-30m post range that used to be a small Series A. 📉 But there will be less capital available in the Seed phase than in the last three years, and less of that will be deployed into first checks. How did we end up here? Here's the full story: https://lnkd.in/gwuGVSii What do you think? What would you add to this? Check out the recording to hear the full presentation and get Peter Walker's take on it, too. (Thanks for coming Peter!) #venturecapital #vc #fundraising #seed #startups

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The rise of the continuation fund continues....

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