Disclosure
Madrone: Sunfolding took an unprofitable project to show revenue growth
“That was the one that was ready, and it was this big project on totally flat land where we're going to be losing a ton of money, and we had to make the decision, is it worth it to do something that doesn't Show off our value proposition that we're trying to se…”
Insight
Founders rush to VC without realizing it demands unattainable exits
“The main mistake I see early stage founders making is that as soon as they think they're ready to raise, they start, they go out to VC. And they're not thinking about the long game when they do that. Because there's only a certain amount of money that you're g…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Venture scale expectations forced Sunfolding to abandon niche solar markets
“So many of the conversations were around how do we become one of the top three companies in the world. They weren't about how do we utilize this unique technology to Help specific communities or sectors of the market that no one else is addressing. It was just…”
Assertion Supported
US steel costing triple Asian steel crushes domestic solar manufacturers
“Half of any tracker is steel, and if that underlying commodity is threex the cost in the U.S., it's going to make it hard to compete with anyone.”
Disclosure
Sunfolding single-sourced its core polymer, ignoring government partner warnings
“Throughout Sunfolding, even from the beginning when we were working with the government, they were like, don't you need two different materials so that in case something happens with the one, you'll have something to fall back on? And we said, sure, when we ha…”
Opinion
Madrone: Accelerators push climate founders toward VC instead of coalitions
“You can go through every single accelerator, even in the climate space, and they will all be setting you up to raise VC. There's not that much of how do we build a coalition. There's all how do we just graduate you to getting a pile of money so then you can go…”
Opinion
Climate adaptation and disaster protection technologies are poor fits for VC
“I would create a program for founders who have technologies that are not a good match for VC, but which are so needed. Specifically, things around protection. And preservation, especially in the light of fires and floods, and the types of adaptation we need to…”
Insight
Madrone: Solar trackers produce an almost flat generation profile across the day
“One of the problems with solar is you're really peaky in the middle of the day, but when you add trackers, you're almost flat over the course of the day. And this is a huge deal for building a new kind of grid based on solar.”
Insight
Solar cost reductions consistently outpace hardware startup milestones
“And we were part of this amazing industry, the solar industry, that keeps deciding it's going to lower its costs much faster than anyone could ever predict. So that means we would get to our cost target, and the industry would have already moved way far ahead …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Madrone: Sunfolding was unprofitable and lost money per project before Series B
“We still weren't at positive margin, and so that means that effectively we're still kind of paying for each project. We are not making any money on any project, which means that we have all this great pipeline of projects, we have this portfolio we can use for…”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Turkey earthquake halted Sunfolding's core polymer manufacturing for six months
“There was this horrible earthquake in Turkey, just really devastating that took out some tiny component that was one of the ingredients in this polymer, and if DuPont had still been overseeing the polymer, maybe it would have been okay, but DuPont had gotten b…”
Opinion
Madrone: Land preservation wasn't seen as valuable enough to justify risk
“Our value proposition of preserving the land, I think at that point in time, wasn't Accepted as being a good enough value proposition to be worth the risk of us moving forward.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Madrone: Climate tech had fewer and lower-value exits than expected
“The markets were starting to adjust to the fact that there hadn't been as many exits in the climate space as people were expecting. And that they weren't as high.”
Assertion Supported
Madrone: Sunfolding required only 3-4 structural components versus dozens for traditional trackers
“So Sunfolding had about three to four structural components compared to dozens of structural components that a traditional tracker would have.”
Insight
Madrone: The solar industry is fundamentally a supply chain business
“Solar is a supply chain business, and we were one tiny part of this supply chain business.”
Disclosure
Madrone: Sunfolding manufactured almost all tracker parts domestically in the US
“So all of our stuff, most of our, almost every part of ours was made in the U.S., and we used so much less steel that it made sense for us to be in the U.S. We had a much simpler part, so it made more sense to be in the U.S.”
Assertion Supported
Flat solar land was exhausted by 2022, forcing development onto hills
“Solar had used up a lot of the flatland that we talked about earlier, and so there started to become a lot of projects that were on undulating terrain”
Assertion Supported
Madrone: Most solar trackers require flat ground due to rigid steel torque tubes
“Most trackers are connected with a long torque tubes, It's long steel tube, and so all of them are connected by the super long steel tube, which means that the ground beneath it has to be flat. And so that usually means you're either on flat land or you need t…”
