Assertion Supported
Kra: Greg Becker told investors only a run could bring SVB down
“And then Greg said something peculiar on the call. He said, we're solvent. We're in great shape. And the only thing that can bring us down is if all of you tell all of your companies to start pulling out share money.”
Opinion
Kra: VCs who triggered the run on SVB share blame for damage
“You might have just destroyed an institution that created value for our companies. And turns out that the people who tried to stay the course are in just as good shape as you are, except the whole ecosystem took a body blow that it didn't need to take. So I th…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2035
Kra: Commercial grid fusion will not arrive before 2035 to 2040
“In twenty-thirty-five and twenty-forty, we're probably going to see some there in that range. We might see a first commercial reactor producing electrons onto the grid, but I think before that, it's all going to be, if we do well, it's going to be pilots and d…”
Opinion
Kra: SVB's unhedged mortgage securities were a massive risk management failure
“I don't know how you invest In these, you know, the government collateralized mortgage-backed securities, that's like the ninety billion dollars of hold to maturity assets, and the other available for sale assets, the twenty billion that they sold at the 1.8 b…”
Insight
Kra: Climate tech is not immune to interest rate hikes and dry exit markets
“If rates go up and IPO markets dry up and M&A goes away, we all suffer from that just like everybody else does.”
Opinion
Kra: The 2023 AI explosion did not fundamentally change climate tech
“It didn't, again, fundamentally change anything, at least in climate tech.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kra: Climate tech venture market still has a lot more shakeout ahead
“I'm not sure I do. I think there's a lot more to shake out of the system.”
Opinion
Kra: Synthetic aviation fuel is economically unviable without cheap CO2
“You know, even if you have free electricity and free hydrogen, which you don't, and you still need CO₂ at scale, and that cost alone plus some conversion cost kills you here.”
Opinion
Kra: Many DAC startups lack a credible pathway to $100 per ton
“I think eventually investors are going to look at, do you have a credible path to getting to like a hundred bucks a ton? Of removal. And I think there's a large number of players who don't have a credible pathway to getting there, even if you make big assumpti…”
Assertion Supported
Kra: Silicon Valley Bank was the leading lender in climate tech
“That enabled, that empowered Silicon Valley, that helped make Silicon Valley better at starting really amazing companies, and in climate tech, they were the leading lending partner out there.”
Disclosure
Kra: Prelude urged portfolio companies to extend cash runway into 2025
“I wanted my companies, if they were looking like they might be cash out in June of 24, June of this year, I wanted them to get to Q one or Q two of 2025, because I thought that's when we would be maybe in some sort of more normal environment.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kra: Plant-based meat and consumer climate startups struggled strongly in 2023
“In our portfolio, or, and in the market generally, I think, you know, some of the plant-based meat replacement companies struggled pretty strongly. Consumer-facing companies struggled pretty strongly.”
Insight
Kra: Value commodity startups on 10-15 year prices, not 2-year spikes
“When we're looking at companies that are making a commodity product, I want to look back 10 or 15 years at the commodity price. I don't want to invest against a two-year spike in something. You know, that's what a lot of people did in the polysilicon boom in 2…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kra: QuantumScape Retains Cash to Execute Business Plan
“Like, look at its cash balance sheet. It still has money to execute against its plan, and it wasn't just about getting public and providing liquidity to investors or whomever.”
Insight
Kra: Physical factory scaling is the core difference between climate tech and software
“They just don't realize how hard it is to build stuff, to build, to make new factories. This is a fundamental difference between climate tech and software.”
Disclosure
Kra: Prelude passed on startups lacking future capital plans
“There are companies that we liked many aspects of, but we didn't, declined to do a new investment into them, meaning a first investment into them, because we didn't feel necessarily that the team had an understanding of where their next dollars were going to c…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kra: Geologic hydrogen will gain more momentum through 2025
“Geologic hydrogen. That's the wild card that came out that is going to get bigger in twenty-twenty-four and into twenty-twenty-five.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kra: IPO and M&A will not see a full return in 2024
“IPO and M&A, and will they return? You know, and the answer is yes, but not right away, or maybe, but not a full return this year.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kra: Venture fundraising will normalize but not reach 2021-2022 peaks
“Will the fundraising cycle normalize? Sure, but not like it was in 21 or 22.”
Disclosure
Kra: Prelude called capital to fund emergency bridge loans for portfolio payroll
“So we figured out that we could call Capital into our fund, we could get it out to our, ah, companies at a low cost to them way, ah, and then we spent the rest of the weekend Working with the companies and with our council and with our CFO to get the legal str…”
Insight
Kra: Traditional banks cannot replicate SVB's startup lending model
“Other banks are more risk averse on the traditional financial metrics That you do to measure the quality of a loan. But Silicon Valley Bank, understanding the startup ecosystem, understanding how these companies grew from a Series C or Series A to profitabilit…”
Disclosure
Kra: Prelude Ventures did not tell portfolio companies to flee SVB
“We didn't do that. We didn't tell our companies to do that, and we're in just as good shape as those other folks are on Tuesday morning.”
Disclosure
Kra: Five Prelude portfolio factories will come online in 2024-2025
“Easiest to talk about what I see directly in our portfolio, but I think this is indicative of what you'd see across the landscape. I can think of five factories being built that are going to come online in 20, 24, five, right?”
Insight
Kra: A financial hedge is just an expense until it saves you
“So a hedge is an expense until it saves your ass.”
