The UN Climate Conference kicked off Monday in New York which makes this feel like an appropriate time to discuss the current state of capital allocation in the energy sector. 

When thinking about the capital landscape for any sector, I think about four categories: non-profits, governments (including grants), private capital and for-profit capital.

Of these four categories, one is severely underfunded, and it may come as no shock to you: venture capital (VC). 

The Energy Transition

The 17 largest opportunities arising from the energy transition have a potential value of over $4.3 trillion by 2030. The graphic below categorizes those 17 opportunities as defined by The Business Commission whose membership includes Merck, Alibaba, JP Morgan and Unilever.

While demand for electricity is currently stagnant or declining, 1.5 billion people are expected to join the high-energy consumption bracket by 2030 and 1.2 billion still lack access to reliable electricity — the status quo is changing rapidly.

Regardless of the generation source, grid structure or consumption habits, the majority of the global population is set to either change the way they consume power or do so for the first time ever.

For context, here are the sizes of popular, fast-growing sectors of technology that you might be familiar with:

• eSports = $1 billion currently, projected $3 billion by 2025

• Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap = $215 billion

• FinTech = $305.7 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 22.7% 

Let that sink in, those are all exciting sectors in their own right and the energy transition is more than 14 times the largest one listed. Other than healthcare ($10.2 trillion), I can't think of a larger sector opportunity.

The funding landscape

Large private equity firms are already making the shift to sustainable investing due to pressure from their institutional limited partner base. For example, in 2017, Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund ($1.5 trillion assets under management) required managers to incorporate social responsibility factors into their investment practice AND announced it would allocate 10% ($150 billion) to environmentally responsible investments.

That number alone is larger than the investments of the entire U.S. VC industry in 2018.

Public, for-profit firms are investing directly and indirectly in sustainability because they see climate as the number one risk to their businesses, according to a survey done by the World Economic Forum that included over 1,000 leaders in business. It should then come as no surprise that for-profit companies are allocating capital against climate at a record pace. 

More specifically, public companies in the fossil fuel sector are even investing in energy innovation including renewables. 

Shell, regarded as one of the most innovative energy companies, is putting over $2 billion per year into clean technologies because according to its CEO "if we're not in that business we'll become marginalized."

Shell’s commitment to electrification alone is half the size of the total capital invested into energy technology by venture capitalists. 

As the graph above illustrates, the venture capital industry in energy is almost non-existent, something that is particularly odd given the size of the opportunity.

Early-stage energy venture capital

Venture capital has historically always punched above its weight. At its core, VC is the capital of innovation. It can change entire sectors in a matter of years (retail, media and marketing) and disrupt even the most entrenched incumbents. 

So why hasn't it worked in energy, yet? A few reasons, but primarily:

• Incumbents haven't been forced to change. That's changing and the Shell example above is one of many.

• The cost of technology (declining rapidly, and more on that in a later post)

• Bad timing by Silicon Valley in the run-up to the fracking revolution left most with a bad taste

• A large number of funds in search of quick exits or markups, both of which are unlikely in a sector like energy where the stakes (and potential rewards) are so high

More on that last bullet point — private fund managers need an awareness of the energy sector, particularly for the hard sciences which are at the core of technologies like biofuels, solar and storage. 

The average software startup takes somewhere between six to eight years to liquidate, while most private funds are 10-year vehicles with three to five year investment periods. It doesn't take long to see that an investment made in year five of a fund might run up against the clock at some point. 

Additional common myths from the sector include:

Impossible to make money and do good – WRONG

Cleantech companies receiving initial investments in 2010–16 generated a 13.4% gross-of-fee pooled internal rate of return, in more recent calendar year cohorts, performance is looking quite strong, both on an absolute and relative basis compared to the broader PE/VC universe.

Less capital has been chasing deals in the sector, and those firms that remain are much more cautious, phasing in capital based on operating milestones, as the venture capital model is supposed to be applied. Capital efficiency and unit economics became priorities, and there is generally less reliance on governmental subsidies or policy support to make the companies viable.

Sales-cycles are too long — Yes, BUT…

The sales-cycles in energy can be as long as 18-months, but the contracts are often large and extremely sticky. Due to the nature of integration and high-trust barriers, energy companies don't change software infrastructure often resulting in much higher customer lifetime value. 

Government solutions/regulations are more impactful – WRONG

There are plenty of examples here, but there's no truth that governments can be market makers.

Do they help when applied correctly? Absolutely, I think the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is doing a great job setting the standard with their public/private fund. However, nothing is a substitute for capital that is held to fiduciary standards.

The most impactful way to allocate capital

• 2.71 billion people now use a smartphone almost all of those are iPhones or run on Google's Android. Both Alphabet and Apple are VC-backed companies.
• Google also made it possible to search a staggering portion of the world's information in real-time
• Genentech created synthetic insulin – helping over 100 million Americans
• Stripe, Square and Shopify empower small-business owners with financial infrastructure they once dreamed of having
• Robinhood and Wealthfront have reduced the friction on investing so anyone can now participate in the financial system with almost no added costs
• Uber is now the first and last touchpoint for many people in cities they've never been to before

These examples are all profound ways in which venture capital has changed the status quo or helped empower an entirely new set of consumers with possibilities they couldn't access before. 

Changing the status quo and an entirely new set of consumers… Where have I heard that before?