š A short, but sweet newsletter…It’s only a few hundred words, but in it we give you a podcast with two founders that are commercializing a material that could decarbonize plastics as we know it AND we give you a report that tells you climate founders exactly what it takes to get funded by G2 Venture Partners.
So long story short Daniel and I expect virtual hugs – but if that’s too much for you consider sharing the newsletter š„³
THE TL;DR šØ
š° How to Get Funded by G2 Venture Partners
- G2 Venture Partners is investing in later stage startups that are contributing to the digitalization of traditional industries
- By using digital technologies to make these resource-intensive sectors more efficient, portfolio companies can simultaneously improve profitability and reduce emissions.
- The team brings investing and entrepreneurial experience in growth equity, venture capital, and technology, especially since G2 Venture Partners was spun out of Kleiner Perkinsā Green Growth Fund.
š Jute – A Key Material in Decarbonizing Plastics
- Jute – a material popular during the British Empire days – may lead to a decarbonized plastic alternative
- Applied Bioplastics is making Jute useful in the plastics industry by demonstrating the scale, climate benefits and cost parity with current plastics
- Targeting plastic applications where biodegradability isn’t desired is how Applied Bioplastics sees the space
šø VC DEEP DIVE
How to Get Funded by G2 Venture Partners
By Daniel Kriozere ā¢ is a Principal at C3, Tech Scout at For ClimateTech, and Venture Scout at Prithvi - and has an extensive network within the broader climate investment and startup community.
G2 Venture Partners (G2) is a venture and growth investing firm focused on emerging technologies driving sustainable transformation across traditional industries like transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, supply chain, and logistics, which together make up over half of the global economy. G2 is investing and supporting startups that are digitizing these industries (hardware and software). G2 is also investing in startups with diverse business models.
Fund Snapshot
- Stage:Ā Series B ā Series D
- Check Size:Ā $15M-50M
- Geography:Ā Developed markets (primarily US)
- Lead/Follow:Ā Both (primarily lead)
- Revenue/Valuation Thresholds:Ā Millions or tens of millions of dollars of revenue (preferred minimum threshold)
About the Fund
Why was the fund started?
G2 Venture Partners spun out of Kleiner Perkinsā Green Growth Fund in 2016. The Green Growth Fund was originally formed to invest in clean energy but quickly expanded to encompass broader digitization of traditional industry ā specifically energy, transportation, logistics, manufacturing, agriculture, and eCommerce.
What is G2 Venture Partnersā core belief?
G2 Venture Partners is focused on the digitalization of traditional industries to reduce emissions and increase efficiency. The underlying belief is that the sectors G2 is investing in are analog (not digital) and ripe for disruption. By using digital technologies to make these resource-intensive sectors more efficient, G2 portfolio companies can simultaneously improve profitability and reduce emissions, doing well while doing good.
What domains in climate tech does G2 Venture Partners have expertise in?
G2 has expertise in all of its investment sectors listed above but wanted to highlight two areas in particular.
Transportation was a trend that G2 started noticing back in 2010, well before the general market considered it a core piece of climate tech. G2ās thesis is that the future of transportation will be shared, electric, connected, and autonomous. A few of G2ās transportation investments that have recently gotten press include Luminar, Proterra, and Shift.
Another theme is around Industry 4.0 and IoT – collecting data and using it to generate insights in industrial settings to modify and optimize operations.
What type of portfolio support does the team provide?
The G2 team brings investing and entrepreneurial experience in growth equity, venture capital, and technology. As such, G2 Venture Partners aims to be a service provider to their portfolio and a “go-to” board member for portfolio companies.
The team can help in many ways:
- Industrial network serving as a community of customers and co-investors
- Operational improvements and best practices on topics such as OKRs and governance
- Recruiting
- Financing and exit strategies
About Investments
What are G2 Venture Partnersā investment process and timeline?
G2 Venture Partners likes to meet entrepreneurs early in their process and build long-term relationships, but can make investment decisions within weeks when needed. The whole team participates in evaluating each deal, with 2-3 team members driving the process, digging into topics such as customer feedback and unit economics.
It is important to note that G2 prefers to connect with startups after a Series A round (G2 invests as early as Series B). Fostering this relationship is critical so G2 can understand a startupās mission and track milestones, in addition to ensuring that G2 can add value to a startup.
What would make G2 Venture Partners consider deviating from their typical criteria?
G2 is focused on investing within its investment thesis. That said, over time they have expanded the sectors they are investing in ā originally G2 was only investing in energy, and over time have added transportation, logistics, manufacturing, food/agriculture, and retail / eCommerce. If there is another trend that fits within the thesis of digitizing the industry to reduce emissions, it is possible they would explore broadening the verticals they invest in.
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š» PODCAST UPDATES
Jute - A Key Material in Decarbonizing Plastics
When plastics are brought up in conversation, the main argument is to always explain how we need to move toward biodegradable plastics or remove it all together. However, it’s a little known fact that most plastic is in fact used in applications where the last thing we want is for it to be biodegradable.
This results in companies likeĀ Applied BioplasticsĀ to explore new composites to drive down the carbon footprint and negative impact of long standing plastics that we may find in cars, piping and airplanes.
In this week’s podcast I sat down with the founders to explore the market opportunity and the advantages a material like Jute could have when compared to traditional plastics.
Check out and subscribe to ourĀ Youtube ChannelĀ for future episodes!
Writers: Swarnav S Pujari, Daniel Kriozere
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