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How Can Impact Unicorns Pursue Profit and Purpose
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00:00Good morning and welcome to our session on the challenges of scaling, of funding and scaling, climate tech companies.
00:15You know, we hear a lot these days about emerging public policies, a lot of public funding both in the
00:23United States and in Europe for addressing the climate change challenge, the climate change problem, the climate change crisis that
00:36we face around the world.
00:38But I don't think we hear enough from the people in the trenches, the people in the private sector who
00:45fund climate tech companies and who build climate tech companies.
00:50And there's some very unique challenges that they face.
00:54And today we have three panelists who are in the front lines of the battle to address climate change.
01:03So I think you'll find very interesting what they have to say.
01:06Hey, my name is Amiel Cornell. I'm the moderator, obviously.
01:10I am adjunct professor of entrepreneurial finance at ESCP Business School here in Paris.
01:17I'm also on the editorial board of an international scientific review called Speaking of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
01:25I authored a book, Spinning into Control, Improvising the Sustainable Startup.
01:31And I am founder of Venturecraft Studio.
01:35We're a boutique consultancy with offices in Paris and Luxembourg.
01:40We help companies, impact companies to scale sustainably.
01:46And now I want to introduce our panelists.
01:49So here we have Steve Wesley from the Wesley Group in California.
01:58Welcome, Steve.
02:00Thank you. Great to be here.
02:02And Steve has a very long resume.
02:05So I'm going to pull out my notes to make sure that I hit all of the key points.
02:12Steve taught the technology, politics, and finance of solving global warming at Stanford's Graduate School of Business for 10 years.
02:22He authored two books on renewable energies and utilities.
02:27He has served as the elected controller and chief financial officer of the state of California, the world's fifth largest
02:35economy.
02:37He helped to take eBay public in 1998 as senior vice president of sales, marketing, M&A, and international.
02:45He was an early investor and served on the board at Tesla.
02:51And he found and manages the Wesley Group, a VC firm focused on smart energy, smart mobility, and smart buildings.
03:00Then we have Od Guo, who is co-founder and CEO of InnovaFeed, a very innovative company producing animal feed
03:12and fish feed from insects and insect larvae.
03:17And we'll hear a lot more about that.
03:19This is an alternative protein source, which is helping to reduce the amount of carbon that's being thrown into the
03:25atmosphere.
03:26And then we have Jan Huckfeldt from Climeworks.
03:31Climeworks is a very innovative company, Swiss-based, that is a leader in the carbon capture market, direct from air.
03:42Good morning, everybody.
03:45So I want to start seeing if we can inspire the audience here, both the audience who's here physically as
03:54well as the one that's joining us virtually from across Europe.
03:59I'd like to inspire them to sign up for the climate tech revolution.
04:06Because the challenge is so great that we all need to be contributing to solving this problem.
04:12And so one way we can inspire them is by telling our own stories.
04:16So I'd like to start with you, Steve.
04:18If you can tell us about what led to your conversion, what led you to devote so much energy and
04:26passion to fighting climate change.
04:31Well, you bet.
04:32First, I'm excited to see all of you here.
04:35I want to get you fired up.
04:37I want to start off by saying I'm probably the rare person you would ever meet who literally grew up
04:44in Silicon Valley when there was nothing there except for Hewlett-Packard, Stanford University, and a lot of fruit trees.
04:53And I've had a front row seat into the largest growth of the innovation sector in human history.
05:00And what I want to say to you is there has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur.
05:07I want to invite you to come with me, help change the world, bring me your business plans.
05:12It's time to get going.
05:15Second, I want you all to know we know exactly how to solve global warming.
05:22We know exactly.
05:24It's more solar, more wind, more EVs, more battery storage, more sustainable food.
05:29The only thing we don't know is how long we have before the climate and the planet are irreparably damaged.
05:40So we're calling on you, the next generation, to bring us your best entrepreneurial ideas.
05:47Our venture fund is on Sand Hill Road.
05:50We're here to fund the best companies globally.
05:53And I want to just point out to, can I do one slide?
05:56If we can get the slide for Steve.
05:59There's just one slide that I want you to take a look at here and commit to memory if you
06:05can,
06:05or I'll send it to you if you give me a card.
06:08It's here on these.
06:09You see it in the back?
06:10Here we go.
06:10It's up here now.
06:11My entire life, renewable energy was completely out of the money.
06:19It made no financial sense.
06:22That all changed in 2018 when, for the first time in history, the cost of solar and wind cost less
06:31than renewable fuels.
06:32Virtually every place in the world.
06:35Just as dramatically, you can see the cost down curve of batteries.
06:41What this means is, we knew in 2008 that within the next decade, every car company in the world would
06:50be going all electric today,
06:52which is why we invested in Tesla.
06:55These two slides in particular are dictating why the energy of the future is going all renewable,
07:03and that batteries will increasingly replace natural gas as baseload power.
07:09This is the new world we live in of the electrification of everything.
07:14I think you're going to enjoy hearing from the other panelists about how they're changing their parts of the world,
07:19and I can't wait for the discussion.
07:23Ud.
07:25So, hello everyone.
07:27So, my journey, I think you were talking about, you know, this generation has to be the people who are
07:33active in the economy today.
07:34I think we hold the key to some of the solutions for climate change,
07:39and it's up to us to do something, because we don't know.
07:42There's a real urgency.
07:43We don't know how long we have, and I think that's what drove me,
07:46and a lot of people of my generation, a lot of people that joined the company afterwards.
07:50It's really, how can I make a positive contribution to this climate crisis?
07:55I studied engineering and business, and basically, I thought those technology and business can be an efficient way,
08:04you know, efficient levers to help change, to transition.
08:08And I founded the company eight years ago with four co-founders, people like me, engineers with a business mindset,
08:16and we thought one of the best ways we can contribute to the solution is by creating a company and
08:24leveraging business to push change.
08:27And then, for me, so for us, why we thought about insects to feed the world,
08:33basically, we got triggered by the, you know, today, producing food, eating, something so fundamental as eating,
08:40is one-third of the global emission.
08:44So, and that's huge, and we have to drastically reduce our carbon emission by 70%
08:49to be able to reach our climate, you know, to avoid temperatures going above two degrees.
08:57And that, in a world where population continues to grow.
09:00And so, we thought, like, really got triggered by this question.
09:03Something so fundamental, it's so challenging.
09:06And basically, when we looked at what are the levers to decarbonize food industry, food production,
09:12to make the real, long story short, insects to feed animals that feed us, fish, poultry, pork,
09:20was just the most straightforward way to do it if we were able to scale up a technology,
09:26a production technology, fast enough to make this product performant and competitive.
09:31And that's what we set out to do.
09:34And we'll hear more about the progress you're making, the plants you've already established,
09:39and the way in which they're reducing the amount of carbon that's being put into the atmosphere.
09:46Jan, please, tell us, was there a trigger moment that led you to focus on climate tech
09:51and to devote your career to helping address this very serious challenge?
09:57Yeah, indeed there was.
09:58Of course, you know, I have a PhD in chemistry and then had most of my career in commercial functions
10:06in big corporate.
10:08And it was probably about five or six years ago that I looked at the climate science and the data
10:17I found just simply frightening.
10:18And I still have the impression that many of us on a daily basis are simply not aware of just
10:27how bad the situation is.
10:29Because it actually, it does remind me a little bit of this wonderful Netflix film, Don't Look Up.
10:37You might remember with Jennifer Lawrence and DiCaprio.
10:46So, why am I talking of that?
10:49Because when you look back the last 12,000 years maybe,
10:57we came out of an ice age and temperatures became very, very consistent, global temperatures.
11:05And we are talking a difference of plus minus half a degree for thousands of years.
11:12And that's the Holocene period, as we call it.
11:15And that is how humans managed to actually thrive.
11:19It was buffered by the biosphere.
11:21And then in the industrial revolution, the humans discovered the power of fossil fuels and the amazing energy density there
11:31is.
11:31And we went from a billion people to 8 billion people within 100, 150 years.
11:38With that, carbon dioxide moved from 280 ppm to 420 ppm.
11:43And 420 ppm, the last time we had that concentration in the atmosphere, is more than 3 million years ago.
11:52At that point of time, life on Earth would not have been actually a condition where humans can survive.
12:03Sea levels were 10 plus meters higher than today.
12:07So, what I'm saying is with our concentration of CO2, we are moving to a state of the planet,
12:13which is actually not sustainable at all for humans to live in.
12:18And just look at the past 12 months.
12:22The past 12 months, we actually have a global temperature which passed the 1.5 degrees,
12:28which is not a political threshold thought of in the Paris Agreement,
12:34but it's actually a physical threshold.
12:36So, when we had this 0.5 degree corridor, now we are at three times that corridor.
12:45In February, we were even at 2 degrees.
12:47And the last jump, which was made public very recently in terms of the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere,
12:57was in March, where the actual concentration of CO2 jumped by 5 ppm,
13:03which is huge in comparison to everything which we had seen before.
13:08So, we are actually hitting record after record, and scientists can't even explain the situation today.
13:14So, the situation is really, really bad, and we need to be acting very fast.
13:18And coming to you, what you said earlier, Steve, I think, you know, what keeps us,
13:23it is not that we don't have the solutions.
13:26We actually don't have funding.
13:29And the funding is depending on the demand of what somebody like Ode or Kleinworks is actually producing and offering.
13:38And I guess we will be talking about that.
13:41Yes, we can jump straight in there.
13:43I mean, clearly, all of you are very mission-driven.
13:46You fully appreciate the magnitude of the problem that we face as a planet,
13:51and that's energized you and led you to devote your time and your energy to contributing to solving this problem.
14:03That's great to have that energy.
14:08You're making some progress at InovaFeed and Kleinworks.
14:13We see you've raised a tremendous amount of capital at Kleinworks.
14:16I think almost 800 million euros, 500 million, I believe, is approaching that number at InovaFeed.
14:25So, there's energy, there's money, there's passion, but it's a hard job, isn't it?
14:31How do you achieve both your profit objectives and your purpose objectives, your mission?
14:40How do you accomplish the mission and also do that in a way that is economically viable?
14:46for you as a company and for your shareholders?
14:52Do you want to take that one, Steve?
14:55I'm happy to jump right in.
14:58Look, no one is more passionate about solving climate change than I am.
15:04But if you want to get it done quickly, it requires a huge amount of money, and it requires it
15:10now.
15:11And every time you invest in something that is green and is good for your heart, but it goes bankrupt,
15:20the entire sector takes a huge step backward.
15:23So, as a venture capitalist, my job is to find the one out of 1,000 companies, and by the
15:29way, we review literally 4,000 companies a year, 1,000 a quarter, that's 10 a day, including weekends, and
15:38we only invest in one per quarter.
15:39Our job is to find that one in 1,000 that makes money, but more importantly, sends a message to
15:47the rest of the world that investing in green is a smart investment, and that increasingly, many of the fastest
15:56growing companies in the world are green companies.
15:58We're proud to have invested in Tesla, it took a while to get to profitability for sure, but because it
16:06had superior technology, drove battery costs down, it has become one of the top, not only most valued market cap
16:15auto companies in the world, but also the most profitable.
16:18So, I want to do away with the narrative that you can't invest with green and make money, and show
16:25the world you can invest in green, and in fact, it may be the best way to make money.
16:30If we do that, money will flood into the space, and then, and only then, do we have a great
16:36chance to solve global warming.
16:37But Steve, just to push back a little bit, as an investor, do you have to change some of the
16:45parameters in your investment making decision, or some of your expectations, when you're dealing with the climate tech problem specifically?
16:55And what I'm thinking about here is the timelines, for example, the time to money, does that look the same
17:04as in traditional investments?
17:07And also, the capital intensity of these businesses.
17:10We see, both with Climeworks and with Inovafeed, these are very capital intensive companies for producing the plants.
17:19I don't know if we saw the image of the mammoth facility for direct air capture, carbon capture, that, here
17:27we go, that Climeworks has built and recently became operational recently in Iceland.
17:35Maybe Jan will talk to us more about that briefly.
17:40So, I don't buy that narrative at all.
17:43There's this notion that, oh my gosh, if it's green, it's not going to make money, or you have to
17:48wait forever.
17:49My investors and LPs don't buy it, and I don't buy it.
17:53There are certain segments of the clean tech sector that are super capital intense.
17:59You know, Climeworks may be there, and that's fine.
18:02Those funds are, companies are perhaps best funded by strategic investors that are willing to wait a long time because
18:09there are strategic synergies.
18:11Those of us, like me, that have financial firms, I must show good rates of return earlier, and there are
18:18many ways to do that.
18:20Spoiler alert, I'll just give you one.
18:23In our view, a lot of the world of sustainable energy is moving from the simple concept of how do
18:29we produce electrons from solar and wind, which is great,
18:32but those tend to be companies with much smaller gross margins, to a whole new generation of companies that are
18:41experts at managing the electrons based on the time of day.
18:46So, increasingly, we're finding very cool companies.
18:49They're in the software, IoT, and big data part of the sustainability field.
18:55You don't just have to have battery companies, or car companies, or direct air capture companies.
19:01There are many ways to clean up the world and make money at the same time.
19:05So then, Ode and Jan, can you confirm that you're finding that you need to turn to different kinds of
19:13investors in order to fund your businesses?
19:18Yes, I think maybe two things.
19:22First, I think purpose and profit can be very compatible, and in our case, in the end game.
19:28You just talked about the renewable energy.
19:30It took time to mature, but today, I mean, it's a profitable business, and it achieves a lot of impact.
19:39And I think what drove us to launch this company, to push it to today, and our investors, and we
19:47did raise $450 million, is this end game.
19:51You know, you can combine profit and purpose.
19:54I think the trick part is how do you get there, right?
19:57Because then you have this whole phase.
20:00Oh, sorry.
20:01Sorry.
20:01You have a whole phase of technology scale-up to do, and I think in our field, and maybe it's
20:09also what you've done with Climeworks,
20:11is for us, decreasing by 70% the carbon footprint of food production, you need to radically think differently the
20:21way you produce.
20:22And so you have to reinvent the technology and the infrastructure, which then costs a lot of money.
20:27It's very capital-intensive, and it takes time to mature, to reach economic scale, to reach scale, to reach competitivity.
20:36So there, I think, for us, time to market and time to money then becomes an issue, because it's not
20:43just software.
20:44It's not, you know, for us, it's not enough to reach the minus 70% through supply chain optimization.
20:51And there is true, one of the difficulties we have in funding is to find the right kind of investors
20:59who can bear, at the same time,
21:02the amount of capex that we need to raise and the risk.
21:06And today, I think, for a lot of technology scale-up companies, you have only a few actors who can
21:15bear both a lot of money with higher risk.
21:20And there, I think, we need to turn, for us, we turn to people who have a more long-term
21:26view, who are more patient with money.
21:29So part of our, a lot of investors are sovereign funds, for instance, or investors from family, large family offices,
21:38people who have a real vision, who can stick to it, and who can be, and who can afford to
21:42wait for the end game,
21:44where there's just a lot of profit and a lot of purpose to be achieved, you know,
21:49but in a time frame which is longer than just traditional VC.
21:54Jan, I'm sure you have visibility of the fundraising going on at Climeworks
21:59and the cast of characters that have invested in the company.
22:04Did Steve's remarks resonate with you in terms of who is willing to sign up and who probably isn't?
22:12Well, absolutely.
22:13I mean, Steve and Olt, I think this is, you described it very well.
22:17And maybe it is important to understand what does it actually take to build such an infrastructure, right?
22:24And maybe we can show that image again so that it can comment on it from our plant in Iceland.
22:33So when...
22:34Give us a sense of the scale of that.
22:36Yeah, the scaling. It's all about scaling, right?
22:40So here we have a mission-critical technology to actually solve our climate crisis.
22:47It's one of those technologies which we absolutely need.
22:51It's basically pulling the CO2 directly out of the atmosphere and permanently removing it.
22:57What does it take?
22:59It took Climeworks about 15 years to go from a lab experiment to a pilot, to a demo,
23:09and ultimately to a first-of-a-kind.
23:11And Climeworks is running now for the last two and a half years
23:14and we use a first-of-a-kind plant in Iceland on a couple of thousand tons per year scale.
23:23And this year we added additional capacity,
23:26and that is what you could see if you can bring it up again,
23:31on our mamos plant, which is 10x larger.
23:35So here we are demonstrating...
23:36You have 4,000 tons of captured carbon.
23:39We go to 40,000.
23:42By the end of this calendar year, we will have an installed capacity of 40,000.
23:47So that's a 10x increase.
23:49And you can see, if you could,
23:52it would be great to bring up this...
23:54If the production crew can give us Jan's slide again, that would be great.
23:59So this is a monstrously big plant
24:02with actually quite a good overall efficiency,
24:05because that's the first question you ask.
24:07Well, what is the actual efficiency of such an implant?
24:10If we are taking 100 tons out of the atmosphere,
24:14we are basically re-emitting 10th,
24:16or there is a 90% efficiency.
24:19And then we are at 40,000 tons.
24:23Now, 40,000 tons compares with a coal-fired plant.
24:30It's a factor 100, right?
24:33Because it's about 2 to 4 megatons,
24:37a coal-fired plant.
24:40And we, therefore, need to still scale
24:43within the next couple of years by a factor 100.
24:47And then, until 2050, we need to get to gigatons,
24:51which is a factor 1,000.
24:52Another factor.
24:54So the scaling is only starting, right?
24:58So we are talking really long-term investments.
25:01Ultimately, this is going to be a trillion-dollar business.
25:04There is absolutely no doubt about it,
25:05because it's essential for all of us
25:09to have these type of technologies at scale.
25:12The key, though, is you say, ultimately,
25:14can we get there fast enough?
25:16It's a race against time.
25:19And here, it has a lot to do with the demand, right?
25:24We need demand for solutions like insect-grown protein,
25:30or like what we are doing,
25:32services to actually pull carbon dioxide
25:34out of the atmosphere.
25:35Here is the plant.
25:36This is not a computer-generated image,
25:41but this is actually a real plant,
25:43which we inaugurated a couple of weeks ago in Iceland,
25:48where we are basically pulling the CO2
25:51through a filter system,
25:52which reacts specifically with the CO2.
25:55Once these are fully saturated,
25:57we use geothermal energy to reverse that reaction,
26:00and then we get to pure CO2,
26:02which we ultimately mineralize,
26:05and we will lock it away as cul-sit,
26:08as you can call it marble,
26:11deep underground.
26:14Let me just jump in.
26:15I think the takeaway for all of you is
26:18if you really are passionate about doing something capital-intense,
26:22you just need to find bigger investors
26:25like Breakthrough Energy Ventures
26:27or Sovereign Wealth Funds or Strategics,
26:30these guys are heroes to me
26:31because they've had the big vision
26:33and they were able to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars
26:36and take the decade-plus.
26:38Spoiler alert here,
26:40most investors won't do that.
26:42We're on kind of a shorter time frame,
26:44and that's just the reality.
26:45But if you're looking at doing a battery plant or whatever,
26:48here's my tip.
26:49Get it done in seven or eight years,
26:52not 11 or 12,
26:53because you're likely to go out of business.
26:55Sooner is always better.
26:56I've been involved in two companies
26:59that added 1,000x returns.
27:03Not 1,000%, 1,000x.
27:06One was eBay.
27:07It never had an unprofitable month,
27:11including month one.
27:14That's a rare company.
27:16Tesla was also a 1,000x.
27:18That went like this.
27:20We thought it was going to go out of business
27:21at least six times.
27:23And as brilliant as Elon Musk is,
27:26I'm not asking you to like him,
27:28but as brilliant as he is,
27:30that company would have never survived
27:32had the United States government
27:34not plowed $465 million into it.
27:37But that's not a good thing for you to bank on
27:39if you're an entrepreneur.
27:40But the punchline is,
27:42the faster you get to profitability,
27:44the more likely you are to succeed.
27:46So before we move into Q&A,
27:48I do want to squeeze in
27:49another very important question,
27:51because we've been focusing
27:52almost exclusively on the financing challenge
27:56for climate tech companies.
27:58But I'd also like to talk briefly
27:59about the business building challenge.
28:03Help us understand, Oud,
28:05that in overfeed,
28:06what is the keystone problem
28:08that you have to solve there?
28:10Is it one of technology?
28:12Is it one of industrial process?
28:15Is it a commercial challenge?
28:19So I think two things, maybe.
28:23The first one,
28:23first challenge,
28:24is to go quick.
28:25And I think here,
28:27what we're talking about,
28:28it's how do you scale fast enough,
28:31fast enough to be relevant
28:32for the problem that we're solving.
28:34We don't have 25 years.
28:35Most traditional industries
28:37take 20, 30, 40 years to mature,
28:40and we don't have that time
28:41if we want to address the climate issue.
28:43Probably have maybe 15, 10,
28:44and I don't know, you know,
28:45crisis is coming up quick.
28:47And the second one is, of course,
28:49to get funding,
28:50to have not only traditional VCs,
28:53but even summer funds, right?
28:55Need to be quick.
28:56And for Innovafeed, we scaled,
28:59we got our first commercial plan
29:00out of the ground in five years,
29:03which was one of the fastest
29:04in this industry
29:05and which attracted trust
29:08and confidence for the rest.
29:10But to be able to scale up that fast,
29:12you have to take higher risk
29:15than in a traditional industrial scale, right?
29:19Are those process risks, technology risks?
29:22So process risks, technology risks,
29:24industrial risks, you know,
29:25it's a new way of production,
29:27so you have all of that.
29:28And you still need to do it
29:29in a very balanced way
29:31where you do step by step.
29:32You need to do lab scale, pilot scale,
29:35then 10x and 20x, etc., etc., right?
29:38So what we try to do
29:39is just to take a little bigger,
29:41you know, the biggest step we can
29:43at each level.
29:44We respect still the global way to scale
29:47to not have too much risk,
29:49but it's about like how
29:50can you maybe here
29:52build the full infrastructure
29:53and just do the process face by face
29:56because most of the risk
29:58is on the process,
29:58not on the infrastructure.
30:00Or can you build more utility
30:01than, you know,
30:02jumpstart utility part
30:03because it's less risky.
30:04So that part takes a lot of energy.
30:07And the second one I would say
30:09is to, you still have inherent risk
30:12and even very successful companies
30:14as Tesla have faced
30:15a lot of ups and downs.
30:17So it's about how then
30:18you can share the inherent risk
30:20with a panel of strategic
30:22and financial partners, right?
30:25And the way we think about it,
30:27it's basically,
30:28we never look at client
30:29just like client.
30:30We look at everybody today
30:31as strategics.
30:33So our clients are also,
30:34a lot of them are part of our equity.
30:36They invest.
30:38We have to align financial players
30:41and sovereign funds
30:42and family offices, of course.
30:43We need to align regulators.
30:46Regulation is a big part of that.
30:48State subsidies is a big part of that,
30:50especially when we're competing
30:52against existing ways of production
30:54which have reached economic scale,
30:56which are heavily subsidized.
30:58But I think it's really about
30:59like the complexity of all
31:01is convincing a lot of different players
31:03to convert and to play their role
31:06in sharing that risk.
31:08So I want to give the audience
31:09a chance to ask questions.
31:11So there should be someone
31:12with a mic that's walking around
31:16right over here.
31:17So please just raise your hand.
31:18I see a gentleman back there.
31:24Hi there.
31:25My name is Alina Knudsen
31:27and a great panel
31:28and great panelist discussion.
31:30One of the questions
31:32that I have actually goes out
31:33to everyone,
31:34but particularly in response
31:35to what Jan mentioned,
31:37which is the problem
31:38of having enough demand
31:39for these solutions.
31:42in your opinion,
31:43what do you believe
31:44would be the best ways
31:45to increase that demand
31:47in the immediate term?
31:51Yeah,
31:53that's indeed,
31:54it's an extremely important question.
31:56We are operating today
31:56in a voluntary market,
31:58meaning that companies
31:59and organizations
32:01have still the choice
32:03of reducing their footprint
32:06and buying carbon dioxide removal credits.
32:10That is going to change
32:12through regulation.
32:15And so it's ultimately
32:17the governments
32:18which have to put regulations in place
32:22to make sure
32:23that companies are doing both,
32:25reducing and removing.
32:29That is all in work.
32:31If you ask me,
32:32it is far too slow.
32:34But, you know,
32:35there is light
32:36at the end of the tunnel.
32:37The European Union
32:38is on a good path
32:39to actually put
32:41the right regulations in place.
32:42The same in the UK
32:43and in a number
32:44of other countries.
32:48Can I just add
32:49a quick point on that?
32:51I just want you to remember
32:52we see a huge number
32:54of companies founded
32:55by the most brilliant people
32:57you would imagine
32:57from MIT and Stanford
32:59and Cambridge
33:00and IIT Deli.
33:03Just remember,
33:05business is about two things.
33:06It's about making stuff
33:07and selling it.
33:09And a dramatic number
33:10of our companies,
33:12they're all about making stuff
33:14and they kind of forgot
33:15the selling it part.
33:17It's not as exciting
33:18in some ways.
33:19So whatever company
33:20you're founding,
33:21and this is for you
33:21about demand,
33:22think of it like an airplane.
33:23it must have two wings
33:25and if you're a founder
33:26or an entrepreneur,
33:27make sure you're spending
33:28as much time
33:29on the go-to-market strategy
33:31and the sales wing
33:32as you are.
33:34And if you're good at sales,
33:36and Jan is the rare guy
33:37who's good at both,
33:38a PhD in chemistry
33:39and a chief revenue officer,
33:41venture capitalists
33:43and money
33:43will beat a path
33:44to your door.
33:45But don't forget
33:46the selling part.
33:47More questions
33:48from the audience.
33:49Yes, sir.
33:50Thank you for the speech.
33:53And I'm Alejandro Vizcarra
33:55from Peru.
33:56Well, in countries
33:57like Peru
33:58and others in the region,
33:59we are several steps
34:00behind in terms
34:01of technology,
34:02sustainability
34:02and regulations.
34:03Several years
34:04behind European Union
34:06or the US.
34:07So,
34:08it's a question.
34:09How can we...
34:09I'm sorry.
34:09Could you hold
34:10the microphone
34:11closer to your mouth?
34:12Can you listen to me
34:12right now?
34:13Yes.
34:13Okay, so,
34:15in countries like Peru
34:16and other countries
34:16in the region
34:17of Latin America,
34:18we are several steps
34:19behind in terms
34:20of sustainability,
34:21technology
34:21and regulations.
34:23So,
34:24how can we change
34:24the culture
34:25of both companies
34:26and consumers
34:26in those type of markets?
34:28And even an example,
34:30I founded a mid-sized company
34:32back in Peru
34:33and I always try
34:35to balance profitability
34:36with sustainability
34:38but several times
34:40my customers,
34:41they don't want to pay
34:42that extra money
34:43in order to
34:44help the environment
34:45with sustainable products.
34:47so,
34:47how can we change
34:48the culture then?
34:50So,
34:51if I heard
34:51the gentleman's question
34:52he's asking,
34:54it's a different spin
34:55on the previous question
34:56which is,
34:56how do you change
34:57the culture
34:58of a society
34:59in Peru,
35:00for example,
35:01or other Latin American
35:02countries
35:03or elsewhere
35:05to make consumers
35:07more aware
35:08of the climate change
35:11challenge
35:12and be prepared
35:13to maybe
35:14pay a premium
35:15in order to solve
35:16this problem?
35:17Did I get the question
35:17right?
35:20I think maybe
35:21our experience there,
35:23I think it starts
35:24with you need
35:25to find
35:25the first mover,
35:28the company
35:29or the client
35:30that will,
35:30you know,
35:31create a trend
35:32and pick everybody up.
35:35For us,
35:35for instance,
35:36the first one
35:37to regulate
35:37and to allow
35:38insect protein
35:39for fish feed,
35:41for aqua feed,
35:41came from Europe.
35:42Europe is,
35:43I think,
35:45very much ahead
35:45in terms of sustainability
35:46and thinking through
35:48and putting up
35:49the right regulatory stuff
35:50and what it did
35:52is it then created
35:54a framework
35:55for all the big companies,
35:57the multinationals,
35:58you know,
35:59to adopt,
36:00like,
36:00insect feed
36:01and then through
36:02multinationals,
36:04the big corporations,
36:06then it trickled down
36:07to create a real trend
36:08and so we saw
36:09the European companies
36:11moving toward that
36:12as the first mover
36:13and then
36:13US followed
36:15regulatory-wise
36:16and adoption-wise
36:17and we're seeing
36:19that trend happening
36:20in Asia also.
36:21So I think
36:22it's more difficult
36:24indeed
36:24when you're in a culture
36:25that doesn't promote
36:27sustainably enough yet
36:29and that people
36:30are not less willing
36:31to pay.
36:31It may be
36:33and it takes time,
36:35right,
36:35but to start with
36:36the market setters,
36:38I don't know how to say
36:39the market leaders
36:40and like to create
36:42an opinion
36:42and you see
36:43then people
36:44following up.
36:46Yeah,
36:46you need the pioneers
36:47to actually
36:49create that demand
36:50with you
36:51through education
36:52and then you have
36:53the early adopters,
36:54it's a typical
36:55bell curve,
36:56right,
36:57and it's very important
36:58to educate
36:59with your respective
37:00customer,
37:01use them as reference
37:02and win them over
37:03to be a reference
37:05for you
37:05and endorse you.
37:07Well,
37:07Jan,
37:07you will have had
37:08the final word.
37:09Unfortunately,
37:09we have to wrap up.
37:11The time has just flown by
37:13and there's so much more
37:14that I would have loved
37:14to discuss with the three of you.
37:16I want to thank you
37:17not only for your time
37:18here on stage,
37:19but I want to thank you
37:19for your determination
37:20and your commitment
37:21to helping us all
37:23win the battle
37:23against climate change.
37:26Thank you very much.
37:27Thank you.
37:27Thank you.
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