Diving In - What A Summer in Climate Venture Really Teaches

Venture-backable climate startups span everything from alternative plastics and water filtration to building materials and green chemicals.

Over the past few months, I’ve helped Propeller recruit and screen founders for its 7th Ocean MBA cohort. The work was both a crash course in emerging technologies and an introduction to the tenacious founders bringing them forward.

As I head back to the classroom, here are a few takeaways from that experience:

Climate Entrepreneurs Are Damn Inspiring
One of the biggest lessons was just how inspiring climate entrepreneurs are. Companies are rethinking precision agriculture, advancing desalination, and pursuing breakthroughs in nuclear energy. These aren’t incremental tweaks. These are a reimagining of industry, and in some cases the creation of entirely new industries. The most meaningful opportunities often don’t resemble “better versions” of what we already know; they challenge our assumptions and expand what we think is possible.

Venture Math Is Brutal
Most startups don't deliver outsized returns. The job isn’t simply to find good companies—it’s to spot the rare, exceptional ones. Paradoxically, those odds force creativity. If 99% of opportunities won’t move the needle, you start looking harder for the 1% that might. In Propeller’s Ocean MBA, the standouts weren’t always the ones with the slickest slide deck. They were the ones led by founders whose vision made me question my own assumptions about the industry.

Fresh Eyes, Every Time
Reviewing applications taught me the value of evaluating each company on its own terms. It’s easy to fall back on pattern-matching, but the best opportunities often defy existing molds. Staying curious and open-minded revealed how unconventional ideas might succeed—especially once I dug into the underlying technology and market dynamics.

The Learning Sprint
Venture is a crash course unlike any other. Instead of going deep in one field, you get rapid exposure across many. In a single week, I might move from molecular chemistry to grid optimization to alternative materials for everyday products. Each application demanded a fresh assessment of team, technology, and market. That pace and breadth of learning was among the most valuable aspects of the summer.

Why It Matters
The increasing frequency of once-in-a-century storms, deadly heat waves, and widespread water scarcity underscore the urgency of climate action. We’ve moved beyond the stage of marginal efficiency gains; now we must build entirely new technologies and industries that didn’t exist a few years ago.

The ocean, in particular, will play a critical role in this transition. From novel green chemicals to durable building materials, the scale of what’s possible is only beginning to be understood.

Advice for Fellow MBA Students
If you’re considering venture:

• Dive in fully. Network relentlessly and stay focused—don’t get pulled into more traditional post-MBA career oaths that may be shiny but aren’t aligned with your ambitions.
• Be a sponge. Talk to everyone from seasoned limited partners to undergraduates just starting in climate tech.
• Read widely. The Power Law, by Sebastian Mallaby and Venture Deals, by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson are musts.
• Go deep in what you love. For me, that’s the ocean. Passion and knowledge in a specific sector can be a superpower in this field.

On the Horizon

From my perspective, the conclusion is clear: venture is the only asset class that supports investment in these inflection points and commits capital to the risks that will shape the future. Climate venture isn’t just about funding companies—it’s about accelerating the systems-level changes that will define the next generation of industries and help restore the health of our beautiful yet fragile planet.