Earthshot & Elemental’s 1–2 Punch for Climate: VC + Philanthropy, Ep #128

We all know that no single investment strategy—and no single asset class—is going to fund the climate innovation we need on its own. Moving real solutions forward takes multiple tools working together. That’s why I’ve long been drawn to catalytic capital and blended finance—using philanthropy to unlock risk-taking and bring more and different kinds of investors along.

That’s what drew me to the work of Elemental Impact and Earthshot Ventures, two organizations founded by Dawn Lippert that are designed to move critical climate technologies from early validation to scale. Elemental uses philanthropic capital to de-risk and accelerate early solutions—but for those solutions to reach real commercialization, venture and private markets have to follow. That’s where Earthshot Ventures comes in, investing early in companies with a strong “why now.” Together, they direct capital into consequential companies to create impact at scale.

In this episode, we’re joined by Dawn, along with Matt Logan, General Partner at Earthshot Ventures. We talk about how Elemental and Earthshot work together in practice, real examples of the companies and projects they’re backing, a new and innovative investment structure they’ve pioneered, and where they see climate investing headed in 2026—and beyond.

This conversation kicks off a new deep dive series with Elemental Impact. Stay tuned for more, and if you’d like to find or propose future series ideas, reach out to us through our website.

What You’ll Learn

1. The Power of Catalytic Philanthropy: How a "slice" of philanthropic capital can act as the nucleus for a project, bringing in banks, corporates, and infrastructure funders.
2. The dSAFE Innovation: How Elemental adapted the Y-Combinator SAFE note into a "Development SAFE" to reduce transaction costs and provide non-dilutive capital for early projects.
3. Community-Led Scaling: Why the "human" half of the solution—customers, cities, and communities—is just as essential as the technology itself for climate tech to succeed in the real world.
4. A VC Lens on Climate: How Earthshot operates as a returns-focused venture fund that only backs climate-positive companies, uses a proprietary outbound-sourcing engine to find founders before they’re fundraising, and targets “cheaper, better, faster—with greener as a co-benefit” business models.
5. The 2026 Investment Frontier: Why Earthshot is doubling down on Space Tech for remote agriculture and wildfire monitoring, and why Robotics is a top category to watch for automating "dull, dirty, and dangerous" climate jobs.
6. A Unique Partnership Model: How a service agreement and shared revenue between a non-profit and a VC fund creates a sustainable ecosystem for innovation.

In today’s episode, we cover:

1. 02:48 2025 temperature check
2. 05:39 Why Dawn started Elemental and then Earthshot
3. 07:39 Matt’s...