Rokas Peciulaitis’ Post

April has been one of the busiest months for me personally in the past six years. It feels like everything happened (happening) in April for us. And we are at a pivotal point for the firm set on super growth onwards. I always joke internally - we are half startup, half VC. We think like investors, but operate like startup. We are not just building (another) VC firm, we are building a climate full-stack platform to serve founders. Founders rebuilding our green economy the right way. Honestly, nothing would have happened without our amazing Contrarian Ventures team. I'm super proud of the team and what we are building. 🙌🤘💥 We are hiring. Join the rocket ship. 🚀🧑🚀 pic Energy Tech Summit 2024 in Bilbao cc: Tomas Kemtys, Patrikas Feiferas, Agne Gudonaviciute, Thomas Potgieter, Robina v. Stein, Iohan Dessard, Alfredas Tiškus, Rūta Skarulskė, Deimante Chailenko

What is The Climate Brick?👇

building bridges across Europe and Asia 🤜🤛 Mike Lim + Om Kaosa-ard 💥

The greatest projects have all started in scrawling handwriting on the back of a napkin. I hope this will not be an exception for the biggest community in climate tech, which we happen to be launching today! Today, we announce The Climate Brick - the missing manual for the climate journey.  In September 2022, I met two old friends, Christopher Brown and Stefan Zlatev, for a cup of coffee in Soho, NYC. In about 30 minutes, we drew this napkin, and we all concluded that we needed the “SaaS napkin” but for the climate. I am blessed to have met Ted Persson at Kauffman Fellows, who also thought it unfair that we don't have such a manual. Magic happened—Sandra Malmberg 👋 and Ted Persson from the EQT Ventures team had a clear vision for this. Hardware is hard, and napkins are too light (figuratively and literally). The Climate Brick was born. Overnight became a year of hard work, sweat, tears, and love that went into this project, and it is finally the day we share it with the world! Why bother, you ask? 90% of CO2 emissions are estimated to be abatable by technology over the next 25 years. However, most innovations that shape modern life were built on common frameworks. Climate doesn’t have one yet. Today marks a call to action to change that as we introduce The Climate Brick. Every founder, investor, and policymaker needs to get their hands on it. Let's scale impact together! The v1 of the brick in the comments (hint: we came a long way from v1) 👇

I had a great few days at the UBS Entrepreneurial Growth Summit - thanks to Frédéric Leibundgut 🤜🤛 I enjoyed the the boxing match 🥊 with fellow Yannick Oswald. Thanks to Ariel Barack amazing moderation! Generalist vs Specialist It was one of the most asked questions by LPs when we raised our fund II. “Why do you win the best deals as spcialist against tier 1 in climate tech?” Here are a few takeaways from our discussion: -At an early stage, data shows cc: Revere specialist outperforms on VC returns (DPI/TVPI) -On Growth - I’d say the generalist almost (always) wins, as they got a bigger💰, and founders tend to optimise for valuation (almost always) -At seed - quite the opposite. They want a sparing partner/expertise/knowledge/access; the specialist could (might) win - Atomico data supports that -Question to ask - who is your client - LP or Founders, and where do you spend more time? Generalists tend to become platforms and grow their AUM (which means they tend to shift their attention to LPs rather than founders - again, depends, but stats show that) -Another way of looking at it - there will always be a founder that will pick “The Brand” or will want a tier 1 generalist for the brand (sometimes a big trap esp, at pre-seed / seed if they don't lead/follow at A) - Also, important - founders pick people, not firms -What's interesting in places like Climate tech is that a lot of generalists know well how to scale SaaS but fail at HW massively - thus, we are trying to address that with The Climate Brick -Also - from what I have seen, generalists tend to play platform -> more AUM -> more incentive to do stupidly big rounds to deploy -> leads to large prefs -> lead to stupid valuations at no metrics -> leads to substantial irrational sector failures - scooters etc. -A specialist will not try to time the market; they will be in the market (they don't chase another trend; they ride the trend) -> thus, it leads to more patience, and people forget - venture is a patience game; marathon vs. sprint -also developing as a specialist - your knowledge compounds, your platform compounds; Venture is a very competitive space, you will eventually have to specialise - being laser-focused or even obsessed about your topic can make you the #1 brand in that topic eventually So - who wins - generalist vs specialist? I think - as a VC firm, everyone needs to have a moat. You need to have an unfair advantage in why founders pick you. LPs will pick you if you make money, consistently. Thus, tell me your moat, and I will say who will win in 1-1. Where we landed in the discussion - collab works best, and that is what I am an advocate of. The best syndicates for me - Generalist tier 1 + specialists (our firm obviously for climate tech 🫣) It's the most potent combo - as we bring sector know-how, and they bring operational guns like Hiring (firing), Sales, GTM and other stuff that platforms can afford. Partnership wins. Founders take the best of two worlds.

Like startups, everything has an inception point. And when it happens, it feels magical. This week, I experienced that together with 1,000 peers and participants at the Energy Tech Summit in sunny Bilabo. Unlike a company that usually has a Product-Market fit or Founder-Market fit, for a conference, I think it is a Participants-Location fit. And this year, Energy Tech Summit went through that. Bilbao as a location was magical. Guggenheim Museum at sunset with your top peers level it up to the next level. Participants = People were even more impressive. When you put the correct group in the room - magic happens. Growth Meets Capital - our new side event was (it seems from feedback) a fantastic success, with overwhelmingly positive feedback lingering in our inboxes, even from folks that could not make it. Virality is a thing still. We aimed to build a unique space - No BS, just business, with the best in climate tech business. One of the panels at GMC - with four climate tech unicorns, one soonicorn moderated by a tiny VC 😅was my top point and just proved that if you put the right group - magic happens. Thanks, BBVA for the unique partnership this year at GMC. And to my founder panellists at GMC - Mike O'Kronley at Ascend Elements, David Trainavicius at PVcase, Andreas Aepli at Climeworks, Steven Meersman at Zenobē and Chao-Meng Lam at EcoVadis Lastly - big thanks go to the teams at Contrarian Ventures + Futurae Media, who made it all happen. From participant's feedback: Participants - Location fit has a very, very strong fit. We finally found a rock-solid “home” for Energy Tech Summit for years to come. Over and out till next year! #energytechsummit #bilbao #growthmeetscapital #climatetech

Who said growth capital was scarce? I am super excited to kick off the first Growth Meets Capital edition tomorrow at the Energy Tech Summit together with BBVA. While growth rounds took a nose dive in 2022-2023, GMC will stir things up. We are bringing $100B+ of dry powder under one roof. 42 leading growth investors, and 49 leading climate tech pioneers. 100 dealmakers in one place. Contrarian Ventures x BBVA teams are excited to welcome everyone in sunny Bilbao. It will get busy. We promise. Growth Meets Capital - where deals get done. cc: Tomas Kemtys, Santiago Muguruza, CFA, María Victoria M., Lourdes Dominguez Bengoa, Antonio Bravo Acín, Ignacio Gómez - Centurión Erasun

Excellent overview by Robina v. Stein of AI stack, esp with Vertical applications, which are on the rise. Where do we get most benefit in climate tech?

Ember is not just electrifying fleets; it's changing how we think about commuting intercity. It takes an Amazon approach to disrupt this old and cumbersome industry and rethinking process by process, experience by experience, where each little detail matters to supercharge customer experience and operational efficiency. Affordable, efficient, and with superior customer NPS. Taking a full-stack, first-principles approach to create a new, highly optimised, all-electric inter-city network. Congratz team on the seamless execution Keith Bradbury + Pierce Glennie and welcome our friends at Inven Capital, 2150 and AENU and existing partners in this journey - Pale blue dot!

Triple B - Bilbao, BBVA and Billions (💸) of dry powder under one roof at GMC. If you are a Series A-D company solving the biggest problems in climate tech, apply to join Growth Meets Capital hosted by Contrarian Ventures + BBVA. Meet 30+ leading European / US growth funds. We have a few slots left. List of attending investors: