Investor Ramez Naam pushes back against the narrative that physical deep tech and cleantech are uniquely too capital intensive for venture capital.
Insight
Naam: Deep tech startups no longer need commercial scale to exit
“It's no longer the case that we have to wait all the way until we have a product commercially on sale or at scale for this to produce an exit.”
Insight
Naam: App-based software businesses have weaker moats than hard tech
“We used to believe that, or companies like, again, I'll say Uber or WeWork, we thought, oh, they have natural network effects, they're gonna have a gigantic moat but it turns out switching costs for consumers are actually pretty low, and maybe lower, And some …”
Opinion
Naam: SPACs generated more upside for deep tech than other investments
“I think it's a fair case to be made that SPACs have generated more upside for deep tech in climate tech and in other sectors than they have for any other Type of investment”
Disclosure
Ramez Naam: Portfolio company ESS went public before achieving commercial scale
“ESS, you know, my portfolio just went public two weeks ago now when we're recording this, and they've got a commercial product, but they haven't certainly hit commercial scale at this point.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Naam: Addressing climate change requires $100 trillion in infrastructure turnover
“Or the early stages, honestly, of a hundred trillion dollar clean energy revolution, essentially. We're going to turn over, that sounds like it's just a made-up number, but when you actually look at the infrastructure turnover we need to address climate change…”
Assertion Supported
Naam: Cleantech VC funding dropped 4x to 5x between 2008 and 2015
“We saw this retrenchment of venture capital, and maybe it peaked around 2008, something like that, and by 2015, the dollars flowing per year had dropped by a factor of four or five, and especially for the earliest stage deals.”