Madrone: Climate tech had fewer and lower-value exits than expected
Layla Madrone · How supply chain chaos sank Sunfolding · Feb 26, 2025 · at 31:45
Layla Madrone, founder of Sunfolding, discusses the venture capital environment in climate tech around 2023 when trying to raise a Series C.
0:00 / 0:07exact quote · 8.0s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“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.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Layla Madrone
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…”
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…”
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…”
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.”
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…”
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…”