S2-E8 We Need to Reinvent Everything! A Podcast with Fridtjof Detzner of Planet A

Innovations in Sustainable Finance

In this episode, I speak with Fridtjof Detzner, co-founder of the climate venture capital fund Planet A, based in Berlin. Fridtjof had early success with an internet company, went on an eye-opening trip to Asia, and came back determined to boost innovation in all climate-relevant sectors and technologies.

My favorite insights of this conversation were:

• Climate tech investing is not narrow. It affects many different industrial processes, from alternative proteins, to plastics, to shipping fuels, to electricity storage, and software.
• The hard part about innovating industrial processes is that scaling is very expensive. Entrepreneurs need money to build large industrial plants, before it is 100% clear that the solution will be profitable. That opens up crucial but also challenging role for investors to enable innovation.
• While large incumbent companies would have advantages to support risky innovations with their balance sheet, history shows that small companies are essential to drive radical innovation.

For those who want to dig deeper here is the link to Planet A, which also has links to the companies that are mentioned during the conversation.