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2021 is poised to be a blockbuster year in climate tech, thanks to the intersection of three key catalysts. First, the economics of new energy are starting to make sense. The cost of clean energy is coming down, as the number of system installations rises and tech becomes more sophisticated. Second, funding is more material now than ever before. We’ve seen more and more investors look towards climate and the announcements of several new climate-focused funds. $29B was deployed into green businesses across the North American venture landscape in 2020. And third, policy is being put in place to bolster the deployment of climate tech across energy generation and efficiency, mobility, carbon offsetting, and more.

2021 is poised to be a blockbuster year in climate tech, thanks to the intersection of three key catalysts. First, the economics of new energy are starting to make sense. The cost of clean energy is coming down, as the number of system installations rises and tech becomes more sophisticated. Second, funding is more material now than ever before. We’ve seen more and more investors look towards climate and the announcements of several new climate-focused funds. $29B was deployed into green businesses across the North American venture landscape in 2020. And third, policy is being put in place to bolster the deployment of climate tech across energy generation and efficiency, mobility, carbon offsetting, and more.

2020 was a defining year for the InsurTech ecosystem as a confluence of factors brought startups & tech-forward insurance companies into the spotlight. COVID-19 forced companies across the insurance value chain to accelerate digital transformation efforts to effectively operate in the new world. This catalyzed the adoption of new products across departments and ushered in a wave of IPOs with Lemonade, Root, GoHealth, Clover Health, and several other big InsurTech startups going public.

We first met Ryan (ThreeFlow’s co-founder and CEO) just as Equal was getting started. The company had been known as WatchTower Benefits (as it was up until yesterday) and was introduced to me by my long-time friend and Equal LP, Shawn Ellis of NFP. Shawn was CEO of a benefits company we had incubated at Lightbank and is amongst the most forward-thinking minds you will find in the benefits industry. Shawn knew that we were on the hunt for solutions that could enable transformation of the brokerage process, rather than attempting to disrupt it by disintermediating brokers. Having worked with companies like Riskmatch, we believe brokers are critical to the value chain and were searching for the next platform to enable the industry.

I first met Ali nearly 5 years ago. He was finishing his senior year at the University of Illinois and was referred to me by Spencer Lazar, who was a VC at General Catalyst at the time. Ali had spent his summer working with the team at GC and Spencer had suggested that I get to know Ali given that we were both in the Chicago area (I was at Lightbank at the time). We had no intention of hiring anyone at the time but were blown away by Ali’s intelligence, maturity and intellectual curiosity. We offered Ali a position to join us full-time as an Analyst, presumably upon graduation. Ali countered, he wanted to start immediately. He was so eager to join the venture community that he dropped out of college to join us, reasoning that he’d learn more as part of our firm than he would in the classroom and that he would finish up his degree online later.