Reflections on 2024: Sharing our Project Playlist 🎵

You deserve a thank you. Not just for your relentless support but also for showing Elemental Impact what true partnership looks like in the most important moments. 

This year I’ve been struck by three rare qualities that our Elemental donors and Earthshot Ventures investors all share that have helped make us who we are. 

Thank you for being BOLD in charting a new path with us.
Thank you for being RIGOROUS in execution.
Thank you for being NIMBLE as the market changes and demands new thinking. 

In our years investing in first-of-a-kind (FOAK) and early commercial projects, 2024 felt like a turning point. With the support of more than 40 funders this year, we became Elemental Impact, deepened our services for entrepreneurs, expanded and diversified our investment team, and began issuing new types of loans (in addition to equity investments) to help companies bridge to commercial capital. 

A donor recently asked me: what does this moment mean for investing in climate technology and projects? 

Here is my take: 

1. Philanthropy is doing what no one else can: As government investment shifts, philanthropy will have outsized impact in reinforcing programs like the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and ensuring they are set up for success. Philanthropy also enables us, as a non-profit investor, to be nimble and create new tools– like the Development SAFE to adapt a tried-and-true instrument specifically for FOAK projects. Funders are seeing the potential: ClimateWorks Foundation published this week that sustainable finance was one of the fastest-growing categories of climate philanthropy over the last four years (though it is still pretty small: $1B out of a total $16B for climate mitigation, which itself represented just 2% of global philanthropy in 2023).
2. Entrepreneurial talent is riding high: We continue to see exceptional entrepreneurs in energy, transportation, agriculture, water, carbon, and nature-based solutions enabling us to complete 37 transactions (including 16 new investments) at Elemental Impact and 13 transactions (including 3 new) at Earthshot Ventures. 
3. Execution expertise is thin: Services and coaching can unlock millions in tax credits, help close funding rounds, and secure customers for the next commercial project. We provided over 1,000 hours of expert coaching and executives in residence to our portfolio companies this year. The right seasoned expert, at the right time, saves a company millions of dollars or months of work.
4. Buzz ≠ capital: Despite the events and conversations around FOAK and the “Scale Gap,” demand for capital is still high. We see a growing investable universe, with more than 300 projects in our Elemental pipeline across the U.S. – with capital requirements exceeding $4.7B. Catalytic capital will be essential to moving these projects into construction.
5. Projects rule: We worked on 8 ribbon cuttings and dozens of local projects and events across the country this year, getting proximate with communities ranging from Upstate New York to southern Utah to Fairfield, Ohio. Below is Elemental Impact’s 2024 project playlist with a few examples – each project is enabled by philanthropy working in concert with government and private investors.

Each investment builds upon the last and each funder becomes an essential part of a larger movement: creating jobs and apprenticeships (10,000 to date), reducing emissions affordably (targeting $50/ton CO₂ abated), and catalyzing additional capital ($10B and growing).

If you have space in your 2024 budget or are thinking about plans for 2025, we would love to partner with you. If you want to learn more about how we built our nonprofit investing platform, we’re eager to share. Our goal is to double our number of philanthropic donors in 2025 to ensure that the highest potential companies continue to grow. 

And if your bandmates call you bold, rigorous, and nimble (or if you enjoy karaoke as much as we do), well, we’d love to work with you too. Will you join us?

Project Playlist: 3 Technologies Scaling Impact

FERVO ENERGY

Background: When Tim Latimer, CEO and co-founder of Fervo Energy, came to Elemental in 2020, he had a vision of building the first commercial scale enhanced geothermal energy facility. Tim grew up near a coal plant and began his career in oil and gas, where he learned the core drilling technologies that would become the basis of Fervo. His vision for scaling his company and the industry was compelling so we invested. 

Opportunity: After a demonstration with Elemental funding and successful fundraising, the technology was ready to scale. In 2023, Fervo began drilling the largest enhanced geothermal project in history: Cape Station in rural Utah. This year, Elemental invested in Fervo again to help scale up a critical pre-development component of this project – training the local workforce. 

Elemental Impact’s 3 ingredients – Catalytic Capital, Project Expertise, Community Partnership: Elemental invested in Fervo – through an innovative Development-SAFE, or D-SAFE – to create the first geothermal apprenticeship program with Southern Utah University. The program is designed to scale beyond Southern Utah and build pathways for oil and gas and other workers to join the geothermal industry. 

De-risking: Building the workforce not only enhances long-term community support for a local energy project; a trained workforce is essential to de-risking early-of-a-kind projects for future investors and entrepreneurs. Unlocking Scale and Impact: This program satisfies the apprenticeship requirements in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) necessary to unlock a 30% Investment Tax Credit. Once fully operational, the project could generate up to 2 gigawatts of 100% carbon-free electricity — enough to power more than 2 million homes.

 NTH CYCLE

Background: When Nth Cycle’s co-founder and CEO, Megan O’Connor, came to Elemental in 2021, she had just closed a successful seed round with four people on her team. Elemental invested in Nth Cycle to help scale and pilot their modular electro-extraction technology that helps recyclers and miners convert industrial scrap and ore into production-grade critical minerals. 

Opportunity: After Elemental’s fundraising and sales coaching helped unlock a successful Series A raise in 2022, Nth Cycle was ready to scale their first-of-a-kind commercial refining system at an existing facility in Fairfield, Ohio – a coal transition community – and needed critical pre-development capital and expertise to implement a place-based workforce, also a requirement of the IRA 48C tax credit.

Elemental Impact’s 3 ingredients – Catalytic Capital, Project Expertise, Community Partnership: Two years after our original investment, Elemental invested in Nth Cycle again – this time with a D-SAFE and tailored support in building a workforce plan for the commercial facility. This work included partnering with local Ohio educational institutions and with local family-owned scrapyards in Fairfield. 

De-risking: Following our D-SAFE investment and support in launching the Fairfield facility, Nth Cycle announced its closing of a $44M Series B round. Our scale up support culminated in a ribbon cutting that included the Fairfield Mayor and a U.S. Representative. 

Unlocking Scale and Impact: In 2024, Nth Cycle was awarded a $7.2M tax credit for critical materials projects. Nth Cycle’s Fairfield facility is the first domestic source of premium nickel mixed hydroxide product (MHP), a mandatory component for multiple industries, including the U.S. battery industry and manufacturing supply chain.

DIMENSIONAL ENERGY

Background: When we met Jason Salfi, sustainable skateboard-turned-technology entrepreneur, he had his eyes set on disrupting the aviation fuel industry. With their novel technology that turns CO₂ into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), Dimensional Energy was looking for ways to scale their team and message their unique value proposition to municipal and corporate customers. Our initial investment and equitable hiring and policy coaching, helped Dimensional lay the groundwork for a successful pilot demonstration in Tucson, Arizona.

Opportunity: By the end of Elemental’s first phase of support in 2022, Dimensional scaled from a team of 6 to 17, hosted a groundbreaking event at the Tucson site, and landed a fuel purchase agreement with United Airlines for 300 million gallons of SAF. They also signed a term sheet with Seneca Holdings, the tribally-owned corporation pursuing non-gaming economic diversification on behalf of the Seneca Nation, to develop Dimensional’s first commercial SAF production facility in New York State and needed to figure out how to finance the construction.

Elemental Impact’s 3 ingredients – Catalytic Capital, Project Expertise, Community Partnership: In 2023, Elemental stepped in again – this time with a D-SAFE to support the local partnership with Seneca Holdings which invests on behalf of the Seneca Nation, one of the three federally recognized Seneca tribes, as well as fund the necessary permitting, design and front-end engineering for the early-of-a-kind facility. 

De-risking: Flexible development capital is enabling Dimensional to build a business model that delivers return to investors and sustainable products to the market. As the majority owner of the project, it also provides durable prosperity and ownership to Seneca Holdings to benefit Seneca Nation creating a national model on how to implement climate projects with deep community impact.

Unlocking Scale and Impact: Elemental’s D-SAFE unlocked project financing from Seneca Holdings and laid the foundation for a future Series B. The Seneca plant is expected to offset 30,000 metric tons of carbon per year, producing nearly 58,400 barrels of sustainable fuel per year. When replicated at greater scale, this model could serve the 371 domestic airlines in the US, using 137M barrels a day of jet fuel.