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Almost Famous
Last spring the team from Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid reached out to us because they wanted to produce a segment on impact investing for public television. Impact and climate tech investing isn’t new, but it’s still niche. Most people (but not you, because you subscribe to this newsletter) don’t know that making money and creating environmental or social solutions at the same time is possible. The general public still silos doing ‘good’ with charity and doing ‘well’ (making money) with business.
We agreed to take on the project because we could feature one of our portfolio companies at the same time and demonstrate how this can be done. Future was an ideal choice because they are one of the few B2C companies in our portfolio with their FutureCard, the first Visa debit card that gives cashback rewards for sustainable choices (like public and electric transportation instead of gas purchases). Future illustrates our core investment thesis—that products that deliver cost savings for their customers while also achieving meaningful emissions reductions with no sacrifice in quality can yield outsized returns.
Having film crews in our North Vancouver office was unfamiliar territory for us, but worth the trouble if we succeed in reaching millions of views through hundreds of affiliate TV stations across the US and share the massive opportunity in climate tech venture capital. You can watch the segment here and critique our acting skills.
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Canada Cleantech Funder of the Year
We’re honoured to be named Foresight Canada’s ‘Funder of the Year’ at the Cleantech Awards! Foresight is Canada's largest cleantech innovation and adoption accelerator and this is the second time they’ve recognized Active Impact with an award. While accepting the award, Tom made them laugh and Sam made them cry but a good time was had by all.
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Follow-on investment: Jetson
The first Fund III portfolio company, Jetson, is a vertically integrated heat pump solution offering hardware, software and services to increase adoption and optimize energy management. Jetson’s approach removes the friction for home heat pump installation including coordinating government incentives to bring down upfront cost, reducing energy costs and emissions. In less than a year of operating they have grown to over $10 million in revenue run rate in their first markets, Vancouver and Denver. Jetson was preemptively approached by a very large VC investor and closed fresh capital at a higher valuation than our original investment. Bullish, we increased our ownership stake in this exceptional company led by an experienced and highly capable team.
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Follow-on investment: Metafold
Metafold API design software enables significant time and material savings in the manufacturing design process to reduce waste and catalyze novel source materials. Their enabling technology unlocks complex lattice structures for dramatically increased material efficiency in everything from footwear to aerospace to biomedical. Since Fund II’s initial investment, Metafold has secured projects with major apparel brands including two of the top five global footwear brands, and signed a channel partnership with Autodesk, one of the most popular design platforms in the world.
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Follow-on investment: Agrology
Agrology’s AI enabled sensors and software provide growers with insights to resist climate-related threats that affect crop health and accurate carbon measurement to monetize soil carbon-sequestration. In the past year they have doubled their customer base with new and expanded contracts with several large growers, CPG brands and researchers including Bonterra Organic Estates, General Mills, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and launched a large trial with Kraft Heinz. Our Fund II participated in a follow-on round with existing investors. If you are deploying into regenerative agtech, reach out as there is limited space left in the round.
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What were our portfolio companies up to last month?
Fund III
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Grew their paid user base to 30 firms and now has over 1.2 million square meters of real estate projects using the platform to reach decarbonization goals.
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Had their best month ever for sales including major accounts in British Columbia, effectively doubling their acreage in this new market. Released a customer support platform complete with training and a help center.
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Increased waitlist for motorcycles in Kenya from 2000 to 5000 in less than a month while delivering bikes to several more customers. Finished charging production build of eight swap stations and 25 fast chargers. Featured on Insight EV.
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Doubled run rate from $130K in Q4 to $300K, exceeding their Q1 target of $240K. All three machines from Columbia Tech are on-site at Clean Crop's new facility and on track to unlock $500K ARR capacity by end of Q2.
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Had a record number of launches in Q1 and achieved $400K in monthly revenue, beating their previous high water mark by $88K. Doubled units processed out of the East Coast from January to March.
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Closed a new $7 million order for a hydrogen refueling installation in the US.
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Launched and exhibited their new software platform SWTCH Cortex, which brings step changes in energy management, local and cloud computing, and wireless communications at EV Charging Summit & Expo in Las Vegas and DISTRIBUTECH in Dallas.
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One of their largest customers renewed their contract at 3X the size of last year's.
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Roles we're actively recruiting for
Relyion: Head of Sales
Skyward: Wildfire Weather Forecaster
SWTCH: Head of People & Culture
Not seeing the right role? Tell us more about you here.
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In case you’re new to us
Thanks for subscribing (or making it this far into our newsletter). Active Impact Investments is a Certified B Corp based in Vancouver, BC, whose mission is to support environmental sustainability through profitable investment. With three limited partnership funds with $175M in assets committed, we provide money and talent to accelerate the growth of early-stage companies that are capable of achieving venture scale and becoming extremely profitable while solving the most urgent environmental issues.
If you qualify as an accredited investor and you’re interested in having us contact you about the possibility of joining Fund III, please take a minute to fill out this form.
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