Energytech Startups

Eric Rubenstein from New Climate Ventures

Eric Rubenstein, managing partner at New Climate Ventures, joins Jason and Nada live from Ceraweek to make the case that what we're calling an energy transition is actually a new industrial revolution. He breaks down why data centers are only the fifth biggest driver of power demand, how his 35-company portfolio is shifting toward localized production and supply chain resilience, and what founders absolutely need to nail before walking up to an investor at a conference. Click here to watch a video of this episode. [https://app.collide.io/content/8XDvJ8g] Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/102dcd73/transcript] 00:00 - Intro and Ceraweek impressions 07:11 - What is actually driving power demand growth 13:41 - The all-of-the-above energy reality 19:12 - NCV fund thesis and origin 22:28 - Portfolio breakdown and data center exposure 25:07 - Upcycling waste into value 28:30 - How the portfolio informs investment strategy 34:19 - Is venture capital broken for hard tech? 37:01 - The missing middle and how startups are bridging it 40:11 - Industrial customers funding their own first commercial plants 45:38 - Raising fund two and what LPs want 48:45 - How NCV communicates with investors 56:37 - What founders should know before approaching investors 01:01:09 - Talking valuation with investors https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Donald Kendall from New Climate Ventures

Venture capital in the energy transition is getting more complicated, but Donald R. Kendall Jr., General Partner at New Climate Ventures, says the multi-trillion dollar opportunity isn't going anywhere. We get into how they find picks and shovels plays in crowded markets, what $100 oil means for climate startups, why management teams matter more than technology, and what it actually takes to get a first-of-a-kind project financed. Click here to watch a video of this episode. [https://app.collide.io/content/mo8FQbq] Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/128fcd4b/transcript] 0:00 New Climate Ventures and Investment Thesis 8:00 Data Centers, Cooling, and Energy Independence 10:00 $100 Oil and What It Means for the Energy Transition 14:00 SAF, Carbon Alternatives, and Portfolio Companies 21:00 Don's Background in Project Finance and Early Renewables 26:00 SolarCity, Financial Engineering, and Residential Solar 32:00 What Makes a Fundable Team 38:00 The State of Venture Capital for Climate 42:00 Why Invest in Climate Over AI 43:00 Houston's Role in the Energy Transition 49:00 Most Exciting Technologies Right Now 51:00 Wildlife Conservation and Closing https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Ashish Gupta & Siddhartha (Sid) Paul from KonsciousPlanet/KP Labs

Critical metals like nickel and cobalt are slipping through the cracks and into landfills, and KP Labs is on a mission to get them back. Dr. Ashish Gupta and Siddhartha Paul, CEO and CTO and co-founders of KonsciousPlanet/KP Labs, break down how bacteria can pull valuable metals from e-waste, why recycling is really just energy independence in disguise, and why they're calling it urban mining. Click here to watch a video of this episode. [https://app.collide.io/content/CWyX5op] Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/934ce585/transcript] 0:00 - Intro and KP Labs origin story 3:26 - How the e-waste recycling technology works 8:39 - Black mass, battery chemistry, and the logistics problem 11:00 - America's recycling problem 14:40 - Democratizing the recycling process 18:29 - Commercialization plans and funding 24:02 - Founders' backgrounds and how they met 30:00 - Challenges in energy transition investing 35:39 - Houston ecosystem and helpful resources 38:07 - Investor misconceptions and how to pitch it right 42:58 - Reframing the business as urban mining 44:13 - What KP Labs is looking for right now https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Imran Kizilbash & Abhinav Jain from Titanium Innovation Investments

The industrial world is still running on manual processes and siloed data while our phones got smarter ten times over, and that gap is exactly where Titanium Innovation Investments is placing its bets. Abhinav Jain and Imran Kizilbash, co-founders and managing partners at Titanium Innovation Investments, break down what it actually takes to sell tech into enterprises that move slow by design, why product market fit is something you can lose just as fast as you find it, and how they evaluate founding teams when the revenue is basically zero. Plus some real talk on Houston's startup ecosystem and whether the city has the deal flow to back up the ambition. Click here to watch a video of this episode. [https://app.collide.io/content/QRLTqGp] Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/0ef01c56/transcript] 0:00 Introduction 1:00 Titanium Innovation Investments thesis and origin story 4:17 Why industrial tech adoption lags behind consumer tech 7:01 Data as an asset in M&A and enterprise transactions 10:23 Imran and Abhinav's career journeys from field to finance 15:04 What product market fit actually looks like at seed stage 19:24 Unit economics and business models in hard tech vs software 29:56 Cutting through the AI hype in industrial applications 34:23 Data ownership, legal challenges, and enterprise selling 40:16 Change management and why adoption cycles are longer 43:21 Portfolio construction and sector diversification 50:13 Houston's startup ecosystem and deal sourcing nationally 1:04:18 Advice for founders on fundraising and building trust https://twitter.com/collide_ai https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai

Jamal Khawaja from Symplii.ai

Jamal Khawaja, founder and managing director of Symplii.ai, sits down to talk about his journey from studying scorpion mating habits in Brazil (seriously) to 25 years in tech at IBM, Deloitte, and Accenture before starting his own AI company. He breaks down why AI has been around since the 1960s but only recently became useful, how emergent capabilities let models do things they were never programmed for, and why entry-level jobs are facing the roughest market he's ever seen. Jamal explains his pivot from building an AI marketplace to focusing on last mile AI solutions for small companies, walks through a real example of AI agents listening to law firm client calls to auto-fill forms, and shares why being AI-first means doing the work yourself instead of delegating it to interns. Click here to watch a video of this episode. [https://app.collide.io/content/JQx5Zv5] Join the conversation shaping the future of energy. Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward. Apply today at collide.io [http://collide.io/] Click here to view the episode transcript. [https://share.transistor.fm/s/b4b0b478/transcript] 00:00 - Welcome and Jamal's background 02:12 - From biology to self-taught tech 07:16 - Houston's pragmatic startup culture 08:07 - AI history since the 1960s 11:24 - From precision to statistical significance 14:17 - Emergent capabilities and what models can do 17:37 - Can AI actually think? 19:16 - Leaving IBM to start Symplii 21:18 - Entry-level job market collapse 24:57 - Are people getting lazy with AI? 30:54 - Claude projects and AI workflows 34:16 - Taking the leap with family support 36:15 - Pivoting from marketplace to last mile AI 41:06 - Law firm client intake automation example 45:27 - Building for future context awareness 48:32 - AI guardrails and pragmatic reality 50:35 - Advice for being truly AI-first https://twitter.com/collide_io https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io https://www.facebook.com/collide.io https://www.instagram.com/collide.io https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io https://bsky.app/profile/digitalwildcatters.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/collide-digital-wildcatters