I interviewed Will Wiseman, co-founder and CEO of Climatize Earth (*) earlier this year, in September.
I am delighted by the progress made since their official launch. I had the pleasure of being the first check of Climatize’s successful $1.75m pre-seed round. I tracked Alba Forns and Will even before they decided to move from Europe to Silicon Valley. As of 1/12/2024 Climatize has helped finance solar projects with more than $6.2m invested through their crowdlending platform.
What prompted you to launch?
Climatize was born from the realization that traditional activism, like the 2019 Global Climate Strikes, lacked tangible change. After joining over 100,000 protesters, we came to understand that once everyone went home, nothing would be different; reliance on cardboard signs as our best form of protest was a glaring issue.
What problem(s) are you solving?
Small- and medium-sized solar projects, despite their value to communities, often struggle to secure financing. They fall into a gap where they are too large for community lenders, who may not be versed in solar technology or economics, yet too small for the attention of major funders. Moreover, many solar projects are unable to fully utilize their tax credits, resulting in significant wasted value.
“If you get 100,000 people together and their best option is to make a cardboard sign, that’s a glaring problem,” … “But if they all pitch in a handful of dollars they instead have a “meaningful pool of capital” to work with.“
“The energy transition represents one of the largest wealth creation opportunities of our lifetime. We want to be able to make that wealth creation opportunity accessible to anybody and everybody who wants to participate in it.“
What is shortly next for your company?
Climatize is launching our web application this coming week. Through this platform addition, Climatize will expand our investor base through partnerships with impact-aligned wealth advisors, family offices and CPAs.
By expanding this network of CPAs, Climatize can leverage tax credit transferability for smaller projects, offering a unique, comprehensive capital service for SME developers.
Which are / will be your products?
Climatize is an SEC-registered Funding Portal, which allows it to issue debt securities and leverage tax credit transferability provisions through a partnership with Crux (a platform for developers, tax credit buyers, and financial institutions to transact & manage transferable tax credits).
This creates a comprehensive platform where renewable energy developers can get comprehensive capital stack financing for their projects.
Additionally, Climatize features a user-friendly app that enables investors of all sizes to directly invest in high-yield energy projects and reduce their tax liability through a unified platform.
What is your business model?
- 5% of funds Raised
- 0.5% per year for servicing debt notes issued through Climatize
- 2% of gross tax credit transaction
What’s your current greatest challenge?
Climatize is working on the scalable acquisition channel of choice along with further improving the platform to enable product-led-growth through the buildout of features that cater to a social investing experience.
Are you satisfied with your rate of progress?
As with any good entrepreneur I’m always hungry to grow faster, create more impact and scale our business. Right now we are focused on disciplined growth to ensure we’re building strong fundamentals upon which we can scale a generational business.
Most banking institutions in rural communities have no idea how to loan capital against solar or other renewable energy assets, and as such many potentially lucrative projects aren’t built,”
“Climatize has made it possible for rural small businesses and farmers to access capital that otherwise wouldn’t be available. Thanks to Climatize’s platform we were able to build several projects utilizing debt instead of our working capital“
Lester Crafton, CSO & co-founder of Ovanova, (a company that develops, deploys, monitors, maintains, and maximizes microgrids.)
(*) I’m an early investor in Climatize Earth.