Filtering out all of the aforementioned greenwashing, the same can’t be said for climate. There are a million oversaturated categories in automation right now. The upshot of facing an impossibly large, seemingly insurmountable problem (if one can say such a thing) is that there’s still a ton of problems that need the right minds to tackle them. But a few perfectly timed investments can make a career. Though, that’s kind of the deal with early stage investment - no one gets it right 100% of the time. The more companies that enter a space, the more more failure we’ll ultimately see. There are still a million difficult to quantify factors, from timing to competition to sheer luck, which play a role in a product’s success. “By bringing digital intelligence to the recycling industry, AMP can sort waste streams and extract additional value beyond what is otherwise possible.”Īll of this comes with the standard caveat that there are truly no surefire bets in this - or any - industry. “Advancements in robotics and automation are accelerating the transformation of traditional infrastructure, and AMP is seeking to reshape the waste and recycling industries,” said Wellington’s Michael DeLucia. Congruent Ventures and Wellington Management led this massive $91 million round, which also features participation from Blue Earth Capital, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, Tao Capital Partners, XN, Sequoia Capital, GV, Range Ventures, and Valor Equity Partners. Recycling robotics firm AMP’s latest raise follows a sizable $55 million Series B raised in January of last year. None will fix the problem, but if we’re lucky, the right one could serve to mitigate things. Somewhere between the two exists the possibilities of achievable solutions. Nor do we have much to gain by going full doomer. We don’t do ourselves any favors by sugarcoating the size and scope of the current crisis. It’s important to be pragmatic to a fault here. It certainly doesn’t help to prep for all of this by reading a recent Greenpeace report that notes, “The plastics, packaging, and recycling industries have waged a decades-long misinformation campaign to perpetuate the myth that plastic is recyclable.” I’m far from a technological utopianist, and my feelings on the future of climate change are a lot darker than I’m comfortable discussing here. Find the right solution for the right problem, and you might one day be looking at your own $91 million Series C. There are going to be plenty of bandwagon jumpers and green washers in the interim, but if you’ve got good vision and better vetting, the right climate-focused technology might be as close to a sure thing as you’re going to get as an investor.ĭitto for robotics and automation for reasons we’ve outlined plenty of times over the last couple of years. We’re living with it - and have been for some time. So I actually think this is some of the easiest investing we’ve done.įrom where I sit, “recession proof” seems a little hyperbolic in the near term, but climate disaster isn’t a thing of the future. And if we deliver a better, cheaper, faster, cooler, easier-to-use, sexier product, then we’ll even grow the market. It could be a really well-designed product, but maybe no one cares, whereas everything we’re building right now, we actually know the demand for it. You spend years building Twitter and you put it up in the app store and you hope somebody gives a damn. Everything we’re doing is providing a substitute good. is recession proof, even without the IRA. To steal a paragraph from Connie’s recent interview with Chris Sacca: The days of the nine-digit Series A seem to have mostly drawn to a close for the foreseeable future, and I’m accordingly hearing more reports of decreased headcounts.īut if I had to choose a tech startup space to ride this out in, climate and automation would be at or near the top. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in the position of raising a round to keep the lights on at my startup as the headwinds grow stronger. We’ve alluded to current and coming layoffs in recent editions of this newsletter, and the truth is that there are going to be a lot more before we’re on the other side of this.Īs bright as your category is long-term, no one exists outside these macro trends. A big, scary bear market is the most immediate. If you can manage to position yourself right in the middle of that Venn diagram, you’re probably sitting pretty right now. Kicking things off with a big funding round for AMP Robotics this week for a couple of reasons, but when push comes to shove, it comes down to something really simple: There are a lot of great reasons to be bullish on automation and there are a lot of equally great reasons to be bullish on climate tech.
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