Sustainable Times Investor Series — Robin Grenfell Cowan: What Really Drives Early-Stage Investment Decisions

The £200 Billion Problem That Algae Might Solve | HutanBio Founders

Six years of continuous algae cultivation. Zero crop failures. A world first. In this episode of the Sustainable Times Podcast, we sit down with HutanBio CEO Manshu Agarwal and Founder & Chief Scientific Officer Dr John Archer — the Cambridge-based biotech quietly building one of the most credible answers to the hard-to-abate fuel problem. Where ExxonMobil walked away from algae biofuel and competitors like Viridos spent years on genetically-modified strains, HutanBio took a fundamentally different path. Their proprietary marine microalgae strain, Sphaerica — discovered through a multi-year bioprospecting programme in extreme tropical marine habitats — delivers up to 10x the yield of previous algae and oil crops. No genetic modification. No fresh water. No competition with arable land. Grown on seawater, in desert environments, using only CO₂ and sunlight. The result: HBx Bio Oil — a net-negative carbon biofuel designed for the sectors fossil fuels still own. Maritime. Aviation. Heavy land transport. What we cover: — The two-decade scientific journey from Cambridge and KAUST to commercial deployment — Why the algae biofuel market has failed before, and what HutanBio is doing differently — The Sphaerica discovery and what makes it commercially defensible — Building a high-yield, modular production platform engineered for desert deployment — The £2.25m Clean Growth Fund investment and what scaling looks like next — The IMO 2030 emissions mandate and why maritime is the beachhead market — What investors should understand about the hard-to-abate fuel opportunity in 2026 — GUESTS Manshu Agarwal — CEO, HutanBio linkedin.com/in/manshuagarwal [linkedin.com/in/manshuagarwal] Dr John Archer — Founder & Chief Scientific Officer, HutanBio linkedin.com/in/john-archer-b551569 [linkedin.com/in/john-archer-b551569] Harvey Knight — CEO & Founder, Sustainable Group linkedin.com/in/harvey-knight-38aa91a9 [linkedin.com/in/harvey-knight-38aa91a9] — ABOUT HUTANBIO Founded in 2019 by Dr John Archer (Cambridge), Dr Noor Azlin Mokhtar, and Suhaiza Jamhor, HutanBio is a UK-based climate biotech developing scalable, net-negative carbon biofuels from proprietary marine microalgae. Manshu Agarwal joined as CEO in late 2025. The company is backed by Clean Growth Fund and based in Cambridge with operations in Malaysia. hutanbio.com [hutanbio.com] — SPONSORED BY SUSTAINABLE WEALTH GROUP Sustainable Wealth Group (SWG) connects investors with private market opportunities designed to deliver both financial returns and positive environmental and social impact. With a network of 24,000+ impact-focused investors and a disciplined, ESG-led diligence approach, SWG receives over 1,200 founder applications annually and presents fewer than 1% to its investor community. sustainablewealthgroup.com [sustainablewealthgroup.com] — ABOUT SUSTAINABLE TIMES Sustainable Times is a UK publication and podcast covering sustainable finance, climate-tech, and the founder–investor conversations shaping how capital gets deployed. Find more episodes and written research at sustainabletimes.co.uk [sustainabletimes.co.uk] — REGULATORY DISCLAIMER This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation. The content of this promotion has not been approved by an authorised person within the meaning of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Sustainable Wealth Group Ltd is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

How Mater-AI Is Reinventing Clean Energy With AI

On this episode of the Sustainable Times Podcast, we’re joined by Mater-AI founders Dr. Nickel Blankevoort, Dr. Chelsea Williams, and Gatleen Bhambra to discuss how AI-driven materials discovery could transform clean energy and thermal management. Mater-AI is building novel thermoelectric materials designed for greater efficiency and new applications in power generation and solid-state cooling.  Sponsored by Sustainable Wealth Group.  Links Mater-AI: https://mater-ai.com [https://mater-ai.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com] Nickel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickel-blankevoort-phd-5b2a9598/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickel-blankevoort-phd-5b2a9598/] Gatleen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gatleenbhambra/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/gatleenbhambra/] Chelsea: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelseaanitawilliams/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelseaanitawilliams/] https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvey-knight-38aa91a9/ Sustainable Wealth Group: https://sustainablewealthgroup.com [https://sustainablewealthgroup.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com] Sustainable Times: https://www.sustainabletimes.co.uk [https://www.sustainabletimes.co.uk/?utm_source=chatgpt.com]

Sustainable Times Investor Series — Robin Grenfell Cowan: What Really Drives Early-Stage Investment Decisions

Host: Stuart Hall, Managing Director, Sustainable Media Group Guest: Robin Grenfell Cowan, High-Net-Worth Investor Episode Overview In the first episode of the Sustainable Times Investor Series, Stuart sits down with HNW investor Robin Grenfell Cowan to explore how early-stage investment decisions are really made in private markets. Robin has backed multiple pre-seed and seed-stage companies and brings a candid view on founders, deal flow, due diligence and sustainability-led innovation. This episode focuses on what makes an opportunity stand out, what makes investors walk away, and how honesty, humility and long-term thinking shape investment outcomes. • Why people matter more than anything • Due diligence beyond the numbers • The biggest red flags • Pitch decks: what works and what doesn’t • Why he doesn’t require revenue • EIS/SEIS and the awareness gap • Where the next wave of innovation will come from • Advice for founders This conversation cuts through the noise. It’s a grounded look at how investors actually think, something both founders and early-stage investors will find useful as the market resets for 2026.

Ep.35 Claire Tange, Joanna Invests

“When you change who invests, you change what gets built.” This week on Profit Meets Purpose Claire Tange, Co-Founder of Joanna Invests, discusses the community of female investors and founders she has built since 2022. Claire saw the problem of gender inequality first-hand while working in both investment banking and startups. “We need to be smarter with our money,” she says. “Once we have it, we need to invest.” Even for willing investors, Claire says, deal flow is hard to access without an established network and harder still when focusing on female founders. Since the first deal in 2022, into tech platform ‘We Are Eves', described as TripAdvisor for beauty products, Joanna Invests has backed ten female-founded companies across sustainability, fintech, health, and sport. Joanna Invests has placed great emphasis on the value of community. Before investment, founders host webinars with potential investors. Afterwards, Joanna Invests arranges small “investor dinners” at the founders’ offices, where women meet the people behind the products they’re backing. “Those evenings are incredibly energising,” she says. “Women ask different questions; they're more interested in understanding how the business really works, not just what the numbers say”. Ultimately, Claire wants Joanna Invests to complete the loop by funding female founders who later become investors themselves. “That’s the goal,” she says. “You invest in them, they build something successful, they exit and then they come back and invest in the next generation.” Listen to the episode for the full conversation with Claire and learn how Joanna Invests is empowering a generation of female investors. ST Website: www.sustainabletimes.co.uk Joanna Invests Website: https://www.joannainvests.com/ Contact: daisy.moll@sustainabletimes.co.uk

Ep.34 Karan Chopra, Kevin Vranes, Earthena AI and Worldly

"Resilience through intelligence." On this week’s Profit Meets Purpose, Sustainable Times explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping business resilience. Daisy Moll speaks with Karan Chopra, Co-founder of Earthena AI, and Kevin Vranes, Chief Product Officer at Worldly, about how AI is helping companies manage risk, improve efficiency, and uncover opportunity in an age defined by climate uncertainty. Founded in 2023, Earthena AI offers “decision intelligence for resilience,” an AI-reasoning engine that helps organisations turn complexity into action - translating data into insight and insight into strategy. Their partnership with Worldly, a leader in supply-chain intelligence, fuses global datasets with proprietary supplier data to identify risks, model returns, and surface investment opportunities with unprecedented precision. For investors and founders alike, the conversation reveals how AI can accelerate transformation, from decarbonisation to supply-chain optimisation, turning sustainability from a compliance exercise into a driver of competitive advantage. Chopra and Vranes also reflect on the responsibility that comes with innovation, and how intent, not technology, determines impact. Website: www.sustainabletimes.co.uk Earthena AI: https://www.earthena.ai/ Wordly: https://worldly.io/ Contact: daisy.moll@sustainabletimes.co.uk