Almost Famous

Last spring the team from Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid reached out to us because they wanted to produce a segment on impact investing for public television. Impact and climate tech investing isn’t new, but it’s still niche. Most people (but not you, because you subscribe to this newsletter) don’t know that making money and creating environmental or social solutions at the same time is possible. The general public still silos doing ‘good’ with charity and doing ‘well’ (making money) with business.

We agreed to take on the project because we could feature one of our portfolio companies at the same time and demonstrate how this can be done. Future was an ideal choice because they are one of the few B2C companies in our portfolio with their FutureCard, the first Visa debit card that gives cashback rewards for sustainable choices (like public and electric transportation instead of gas purchases). Future illustrates our core investment thesis—that products that deliver cost savings for their customers while also achieving meaningful emissions reductions with no sacrifice in quality can yield outsized returns.

Having film crews in our North Vancouver office was unfamiliar territory for us, but worth the trouble if we succeed in reaching millions of views through hundreds of affiliate TV stations across the US and share the massive opportunity in climate tech venture capital. You can watch the segment here and critique our acting skills.