Fernandez: FOAK Project Investors Require at Least Six Months of Demo Data
Mario Fernandez · FOAK tales · Jan 16, 2025 · at 13:20
Mario Fernandez, head of Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, outlines the technical validation milestones necessary before venture and infrastructure investors will finance first-of-a-kind (FOAK) climate hardware projects.
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“What we know is at the end of the day, the investors that come in at the Series C, Series D, you know, most of the time funding or partially funding first of a kind projects, they really want to see six months or more, or performance because things degrade if you continuously operate something in a way that you didn't do it on the pilot, things degrade in a way that you really have to learn from that, and figure out how you're going to engineer your first of a kind to make sure the performance is there.”
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