Boosting EU’s venture capital market

00:00:02: Empowering Tomorrow, the podcast from VERBUND X

00:00:15: There are all of the ingredients that you would hope for for

00:00:18: Europe to have very, very similar, very strong tech hubs.

00:00:22: We're very, very focused on making sure that European innovation

00:00:25: that we invest in can scale globally.

00:00:28: We have a very strong belief that AI can be a powerful

00:00:32: tool for cutting emissions and improving efficiency.

00:00:35: Welcome to Empowering Tomorrow, the podcast from VERBUND

00:00:39: X. Together with top experts, we explore the

00:00:43: future of energy in Europe. We talk about innovations, technologies

00:00:49: and bold initiatives that are already shaping a sustainable energy

00:00:52: future today. How can we reach a climate neutral Europe?

00:00:56: Europe? How can we close the innovation gap?

00:00:59: These are the questions we will tackle in this podcast.

00:01:03: My name is Franz Zöchbauer. I am the Managing Director of VERBUND

00:01:06: X, the Innovation and Venture unit of VERBUND, Austria's leading

00:01:10: energy company. Let's get started.

00:01:17: Hello and a warm welcome to a new episode of VERBUND X

00:01:21: Empowering Tomorrow, our podcast where we explore the ideas,

00:01:24: innovation and people'shaping the energy future.

00:01:27: My name is Franz Zöchbauer and I'm delighted to guide you through

00:01:30: today's conversation. Today, I'm truly excited to welcome Lucia

00:01:34: Keijer-Palau from Generation Investment. Welcome, Lucia.

00:01:37: Hey, Franz, it's great to be here. Lucia has been with

00:01:41: Generation Investment Management for the past four years and

00:01:43: is a director on their growth equity team.

00:01:46: She helps lead investments in some of the world's most

00:01:49: promising growth stage companies in energy, software, services

00:01:52: and hardware. And before that, Lucia began her career at

00:01:56: McKinsey working in London and Bogota.

00:01:58: And today, Lucia, you'at the forefront of the global

00:02:02: energy innovation and we are really pleased to have you here.

00:02:06: So Lucia, before we dive in, could you also give

00:02:09: us a quick intro to Generation, what makes the firm unique and

00:02:13: what you're focusing on? Of course. So Generation is a

00:02:19: purely sustainable investment manager.

00:02:22: That's all we do. It's all we ever really set out

00:02:26: to do from our founding in 2004. So generation was founded

00:02:30: by a group of partners, including, you know, our senior partner

00:02:35: today, David Blood, who came from Goldman Sachs and our chairman

00:02:38: today, former US Vice President Al Gore.

00:02:41: And really from that, that group had an original vision of

00:02:45: really thinking about if you could deeply integrate thinking

00:02:49: about sustainability and what is good for the world into

00:02:53: a rigorous investment process that might allow you to generate

00:02:57: good returns for our clients over the very, very long term.

00:03:01: That was a core founding philosophy which today is still

00:03:05: very true to what we do. Even though Generation is, you know,

00:03:09: more than a small group of partners today.

00:03:11: Although it is very much a boutique and intentionally boutique

00:03:15: firm. So if you think about our different strategies, we

00:03:19: have a public equity strategy where we invest in large

00:03:23: public businesses that we think are really, really shifting the

00:03:27: system at scale. We have a growth equity business where I

00:03:31: sit, where we really help you. We really try

00:03:34: to help scale up innovative solutions, really pushing sustainability

00:03:39: across healthcare, fintech and also the climate.

00:03:43: Yeah, we also have a private equity strategy that really focuses

00:03:47: on investing and partnering with sustainability platforms.

00:03:51: So large businesses that are again really, really shifting the

00:03:54: needle for the transition at scale. And then also

00:04:02: our kind of climate led investing platform called Just Climate,

00:04:05: who really focus on bridging that gap, frankly between venture

00:04:09: funding and infrastructure funding to ensure that critical climate

00:04:13: solutions can scale. So that is generation as a

00:04:17: platform. But actually if you take a big step back, the thing

00:04:20: that unites all of those different strategies is a deep research

00:04:24: approach to really thinking through what are the biggest

00:04:29: problems facing the world and what are deeply scalable, but also

00:04:33: sustainable solutions to fixing those problems and partnering

00:04:37: with businesses that are really at the intersection of that.

00:04:41: That's really exciting, Lucia, what you're doing at Generation.

00:04:44: And if you look that you have almost 40 billion assets

00:04:49: under management, that's really also quite impactful.

00:04:53: You talked about a lot of growth, investing in

00:04:56: growth companies. If you go back and do a deep dive to

00:04:59: the big picture and the innovation gap in Europe. Europe is strong

00:05:03: in research, but it often struggles to scale. From your perspective,

00:05:08: knowing you're having offices in London, San Francisco

00:05:12: and you're investing globally, what are the key obstacles we

00:05:15: need to overcome, particularly in the energy sector in

00:05:19: order to solve this and close the innovation gap in Europe?

00:05:23: That's a very big question. So I mean, you know, if

00:05:27: we take that step by step, right. The reasons for Europe's

00:05:33: kind of relative lagging to the US or rather the US

00:05:37: is incredible success kind of commercially scaling innovation

00:05:40: that are well documented, including on other very good episodes

00:05:43: of this podcast. I think my personal perspective on this

00:05:47: would be that it's really about the powerhouse that is Silicon

00:05:50: Valley and the sheer depth of US capital markets, rather actually

00:05:54: than huge weaknesses of Europe per se.

00:05:58: But you know, conversely for Europe, you do have those challenges

00:06:01: of scaling across different markets and different languages.

00:06:04: I would say though I was reflecting on this this morning, that

00:06:08: if you really think about the current AI wave that we're living

00:06:11: in, so actually you take a broader step back, right.

00:06:13: And you think about venture and where venture is,venture is

00:06:17: spending its attention currently. You know, the European businesses

00:06:20: are really punching above their weight of really doing an extremely

00:06:23: good job. Right. If you look at businesses like DeepMind within

00:06:26: Google or Lovable or 11 Labs or many, many others, you

00:06:30: know, leading innovation coming out of Europe. Europe's tech

00:06:34: talent pool has scaled something like 7x over the last decade

00:06:37: alone. And you know, the total funding of VC dollars is something

00:06:40: like 10 times. Yeah, has improved 10 times in

00:06:45: the last decade I think growing from something like 43 billion

00:06:48: to over 400 billion. So you know, lots of

00:06:52: reasons to be very excited about Europe generally.

00:06:56: And then actually when you think about energy systems and investing

00:06:59: in energy, you know, you can make a quite compelling case for

00:07:02: why Europe is in some ways, in some ways's ahead of the US,

00:07:06: right. If you think about for example actually Europe has really

00:07:09: quite centralized energy markets. There are multiple exchanges

00:07:13: but actually a huge amount of the volume goes through goes

00:07:17: through EPEX. Spot also goes through EPEX.

00:07:19: And actually when you compare that to the US in some respects

00:07:22: the US looks more like Europe in terms of energy market fragmentation

00:07:26: when you think about all of the different ISOs and RTOs operating

00:07:30: different markets effectively. So actually you could say that's

00:07:32: a huge opportunity for European energy market solutions to scale

00:07:37: more efficiently. I think the other thing you could point to

00:07:40: right is Europe, in many ways Europe has led the

00:07:43: way in liberalizing its energy markets more broadly.

00:07:47: And so you think about, you know, our portfolio company Octopus

00:07:50: Energy which has scaled in more or less the last decade

00:07:53: to become the biggest energy retailer in the UK and growing elsewhere.

00:07:57: Like in some ways actually that was possible because of the legacy

00:07:59: of liberalization and the push for consumer choice that the

00:08:03: UK regulator had over many years. So again you can

00:08:07: really I think point to an energy systems Europe really being

00:08:10: ahead in some ways. You know, I think that's also true if

00:08:13: you look at phenomenal scaled European, you know, European

00:08:18: energy growth businesses like Aurora Energy Research or PV Case.

00:08:23: If we look at success stories like we just discussed, it's always

00:08:26: the question about the state of venture capital.

00:08:30: You mentioned that there's a huge growth in venture capital and

00:08:33: in Europe you have seen over the last decade.

00:08:37: But maybe a scaling of Octopus would not be

00:08:40: possible if not investors from the US like you stepped

00:08:43: in and provide the capital for scaling.

00:08:47: You mentioned earlier that the main difference is that really

00:08:51: the US has the Silicon Valley and also the VC

00:08:55: funds there. Do you think that Europe could really close this

00:08:59: gap and catch up to the US in the VC market?

00:09:02: Yeah. So I mean I would say the investment into Octopus

00:09:07: and to many other businesses that we've backed in this space.

00:09:10: Yeah. Also came from our office in London.

00:09:12: Right. Like we think of ourselves as deeply global, you know,

00:09:16: with a real European base in our headquarters in London.

00:09:22: And

00:09:25: I think too again hard to say without a

00:09:29: crystal ball but I think there are all of the ingredients that

00:09:31: you would hope for for Europe to have very, very similar, very

00:09:35: strong tech hubs that you know, combined can be

00:09:39: as big, if not bigger than what has been produced in the

00:09:43: US but obviously these things take time and there is a gap to

00:09:46: close. So I think we remain extremely excited and you know, extremely

00:09:50: deeply rooted in London as an Innovation hub

00:09:53: and deeply committed to working with Centers of European

00:09:57: innovation elsewhere. But also frankly, you know,

00:10:03: the energy transition and the climate crisis are global

00:10:07: problems. Right. And so actually I think we're extremely focused

00:10:10: on making sure that we take a properly global perspective, especially

00:10:14: when we think about energy markets because ultimately we all

00:10:17: face versions of the same problems. And so I think we're

00:10:20: very, very focused on making sure that European innovation that

00:10:23: we invest in, can scale globally and can have proper big

00:10:27: solutions to the ultimately, the global problems that we face.

00:10:34: You mentioned something you have your headquarter in London.

00:10:36: I was last week in London and it was really impressed about all

00:10:40: the dynamic in the Cleantech ecosystem and that

00:10:45: 1/5 of global investments in climate related AI innovation

00:10:50: is done in the UK and that's really exciting and congratulations

00:10:53: that you really based in the center of innovation in

00:10:57: the UK.

00:11:01: If you look on innovations in energy sectors, which innovations

00:11:05: and technologies in energy excites you must at the time

00:11:09: now? You see some really surprising and refreshing new Technologies,

00:11:13: innovation coming up to the Surface?

00:11:17: So I think, you know, I guess that's a way of saying what

00:11:20: are we focused on, what are we thinking about?

00:11:22: And really I think in the energy space there are three things.

00:11:26: The first and frankly this is maybe what's most top of mind

00:11:29: you maybe actually saw that last week we published our sustainability

00:11:32: trends report, which is a report we publish every year, kind

00:11:36: of trying to take stock of where we are in the transition to

00:11:40: a more sustainable economy. And I think there we really highlighted

00:11:44: at the forefront of where we're thinking about, of what we're

00:11:48: thinking about really being the impact of AI on the

00:11:52: energy system. You know, I think we have a very strong

00:11:55: belief that AI can be a powerful tool for cutting emissions

00:11:58: and improving efficiency. But that frankly, you know, studies

00:12:02: suggest that applying you know, so there are clear clear positives

00:12:05: of what AI can do. And I think studies show that if you

00:12:09: were to properly apply AI to say, energy, transport and

00:12:13: agriculture, you could reduce global emissions by 6 to 10% annually.

00:12:18: But clearly AI is also creating a lot of load

00:12:22: growth and is also potentially creating a lot of strain on the

00:12:25: system and using a lot of energy itself.

00:12:27: And I think we're very strong believers that AI if properly applied,

00:12:31: can more than offset AI's own energy footprint.

00:12:34: But there is a lot of work to do. So that's one place that we've

00:12:36: been spending a lot of time. And actually we're seeing early

00:12:39: signs that some of that innovation really is coming through.

00:12:42: Like our own portfolio company, WEKA, which is really a storage

00:12:46: solution for AI. It sells software to help make AI models

00:12:50: faster and more efficient effectively.

00:12:53: It's helping their clients cut emissions by reducing hardware

00:12:58: needs by up to 90% by being a software to make AI

00:13:01: run more efficiently. Or if you look at for example, Google's

00:13:04: AI aviation models that can shrink contrails, which is a

00:13:08: third of aviation related warming, can increase them by over

00:13:11: 50%. So that's a very long way of saying the

00:13:14: number one focus for us really at the moment that where we've

00:13:17: been spending a lot of time and a lot of debate is thinking

00:13:20: about how do we make sure that AI has a positive impact on the

00:13:24: transition and on energy in particular.

00:13:26: And I think we're very excited about what could be done if

00:13:30: we do it right, basically. So that would be one big theme, I

00:13:34: think something else, but you know, we're also thinking about

00:13:36: is just resiliency in the face of climate change for above

00:13:40: all for the grid and thinking through,

00:13:45: you know, thinking through how to best adapt and respond to

00:13:49: wildfires, for example. Yeah, and that's clearly been a very,

00:13:51: very big issue in parts of the US and California specifically.

00:13:55: And we've seen as a response to that really incredible innovation

00:13:59: from businesses like Gridware who have developed really a new

00:14:03: kind of way of sensing what's happening on the grid, or businesses

00:14:06: like Pano AI who can with kind of computer vision or

00:14:10: with cameras really look at what's happening and send signals.

00:14:14: But I think that resiliency has been another big, big place

00:14:18: that we've spent time, I think, you know, more broadly if I

00:14:21: zoom out and I think about what my other colleagues Generation

00:14:23: have been focused on, know the team at Justc Climate has

00:14:27: been very, very focused on helping scale up innovation and

00:14:31: really bridging that gap between kind of venture and infrastructure

00:14:35: funding and so they've been supporting really exciting projects

00:14:39: like the work that Stegra is doing developing a first its kind

00:14:43: very large scale green steel plant in northern Sweden, the Boden

00:14:46: project. But also frankly spending a lot of time thinking

00:14:50: about how do we make sure that we are financing the

00:14:53: right technologies and businesses that will help cut emissions

00:14:57: in places where they forecast to grow a lot because of economic

00:15:01: growth over the coming years. And so the team made an investment

00:15:04: in a business called Continuum Green Energy which is one of the

00:15:07: leading renewable energy groups in India, focused on commercial

00:15:11: and industrial customers and also recently announced I think

00:15:15: earlier this year our Latin America strategy where we'll really

00:15:18: be doubling down on climate solutions in that part of the

00:15:21: world. So a lot going on, which is great because

00:15:25: there is a lot of work to do.

00:15:30: Thanks for sharing your focus on investment and what

00:15:32: you see is at the moment most exciting for you. As you're investing

00:15:37: in a later stage VC fund and it's often

00:15:41: an issue in Europe so that really startups don't get later funding

00:15:44: for really scaling. Do you have any advice for startups how

00:15:48: they can better position themselves for later stage funding?

00:15:52: So they really come to the stage where they can scale

00:15:55: and so that their solutions can also provide impact to our Problems? 260 00:16:00.195 --> 00:16:03.611 Yeah, so if I compare you know, the work that we're

00:16:03: doing in energy growth investing to say the work that some

00:16:06: of my colleagues do looking at businesses and say healthare or

00:16:10: fintech, a pattern that we see is that sometimes

00:16:13: it takes a little bit longer to build in energy but then once

00:16:17: you have built trust or once you have passed the chasm, be

00:16:20: it you know, pilots or gaining bank ability or whatever it

00:16:24: is then actually you can really, really inflect from there.

00:16:27: And so it might take longer to get to 1, but it can

00:16:30: be quicker to get to 10 if that makes sense.

00:16:32: And so I think the advice, the kind of learning from that would

00:16:35: be to build lean in the first instance and to

00:16:39: not burn lots of money in the kind of zero to one phase

00:16:42: and to really, really focus on building market credibility and

00:16:46: trust. It's very, very hard to bulldoze that frankly.

00:16:50: And I think the other the related thought I had to that

00:16:53: is, you know, with AI tools now there is so much more that

00:16:56: you can do in a very, very efficient way in those very, very

00:17:00: early days as you kind of build up market trust.

00:17:04: If you think about for example how long it might take have taken

00:17:07: a business five, 10 years ago to fill in utility RFPs for a

00:17:10: pilot, you know there are tools that can make writing RFPs a

00:17:13: lot more efficient today than they used to be.

00:17:16: So I think that would be my overarching reflection.

00:17:19: I think more broadly a thing that we talk about a lot is

00:17:23: that especially if you're selling into utilities, you're ultimately

00:17:26: selling into folk who provide the underpinnings for almost the

00:17:30: entire economy, right. And that whose ultimate job is to not

00:17:33: turn to make sure the lights stay on.

00:17:35: And so really, we really, really think that just the imperative

00:17:39: for businesses building in energy is to really think about how

00:17:42: you create trust, how you create trust with end consumers, how

00:17:46: you create trust with utilities. And there are multiple different

00:17:49: ways to build trust, right? So if I think about

00:17:52: our portfolio in energy that the two key businesses

00:17:56: there today would be as a kind of Generation across growth

00:18:00: and private equity would be Volue, which is a European market

00:18:03: leader in selling solutions that help utilities and traders make

00:18:08: value out of volatility in the energy transition.

00:18:11: Again, that's very mission critical, right?

00:18:13: It's like really helping folk actually trade and buy and sell

00:18:17: power and to optimize their assets in the most efficient way.

00:18:20: And that's a business that build trust frankly over the best

00:18:23: part of 50 years depending on how you can kind of slowly developing

00:18:27: hand in hand with their customers. That's one way of building

00:18:30: trust is compounding steadily over a very long period

00:18:34: of time. The other way of building trust, you know,

00:18:38: frankly if you think about what Octopus and Kraken have done

00:18:42: and you know they've recently announced as a matter of days

00:18:45: ago in back the kind of the spitting apart and Kraken becoming

00:18:48: independent and you know, you would look at Kraken today and

00:18:51: say wow, that is a scaled $500 million Energy software

00:18:56: business. How did you do that? And in some ways, and this is

00:18:58: not the whole answer, but it's part of the answer is that they

00:19:01: really proved market trust by showing that they could power the

00:19:04: Octopus plattform and they could gain other customers by saying and

00:19:07: like really showing in practice that you could trust this software

00:19:11: because a large retail utility was powered by it.

00:19:15: So that's another way of building trust is you know, going

00:19:19: and actually building a utility yourself or conversely just showing

00:19:23: that the technology works in practice.

00:19:25: So different ways to build trust. But we really see that as,

00:19:28: as an organizing principle for how you scale in this space.

00:19:33: Okay, building trust. And you just mentioned also role of utilities.

00:19:37: If you look at established players like VERBUND and other

00:19:40: utility companies, how can these companies better

00:19:46: work together with startups? What's your experience?

00:19:50: We also really delighted Lucia that you also invited us to some

00:19:53: of your exchanges and circles. Do you have a

00:19:57: secret or do you have a proposal also

00:19:59: to establish Players? Because it's always

00:20:03: the issue. So there's innovations made by startups and how we

00:20:07: can really scale it and bring it to the market because that's

00:20:11: important to really get to an impact as soon as possible.

00:20:15: You know, in some ways I think, and this is a question

00:20:18: I'd love to throw back to you because you have a lot of first

00:20:21: hand experience looking at this, right?

00:20:23: But in some ways there is no easy answer to this

00:20:26: because of course utilities need to pilot technology.

00:20:30: Again as I said, it's running mission critical systems.

00:20:32: You're running ultimately the grid and the thing that keeps us

00:20:35: all, you know, ticking along. And so to just throw new

00:20:39: technology at the wall and hope that it works is, is

00:20:43: not a thing that works for the system.

00:20:44: Right. And so I think we are, I really understand why

00:20:49: pilots are such an important feature of having to scale

00:20:52: energy tech. That said, I think two reflections, but I'd

00:20:56: be very curious for your view on how we can smoothen

00:21:00: out this process. And what I think is, you know, just

00:21:03: making sure that we have very, very good mechanisms for sharing

00:21:06: learnings across different pilots. And I think, you know, utilities

00:21:09: do this very well already, but I'm sure there are always ways

00:21:13: to make it better because you know, if you've tested

00:21:16: one technology in one way, you don't necessarily have to test

00:21:20: it in that exact same way again. And so being able to share and

00:21:22: also trust kind of pilots between utilities, I think is very

00:21:26: important. And we, you know, we do some work trying to convene

00:21:29: people around new technologies and to really create, as you mentioned,

00:21:32: opportunities for sharing insights and sharing what's worked

00:21:36: because we think that really is an important accelerant.

00:21:39: I think the second thing would be, you know, because that is

00:21:42: really an answer to how do you share learnings.

00:21:45: Once something that is working and then the other thing to fix

00:21:47: is like, well, what should we test in the first place?

00:21:50: Because there are so many different innovations.

00:21:52: Utilities have a limited amount of time and they cannot

00:21:56: test every single thing that comes to market.

00:21:58: And so we need very good mechanisms and there are very good mechanisms

00:22:01: in place often for figuring out what to test and

00:22:04: making sure that there innovations get there in the first instance.

00:22:08: You know, I think that you and the team have done a really exceptional

00:22:11: job of creating a model whereby you can be

00:22:15: in some ways the first line of filtration for having a look

00:22:18: at technology and then really making sure it goes and gets tested

00:22:21: within the VERBUND business. I think that's a very, very powerful

00:22:24: model becausee, you know, I think you

00:22:28: have shown again I'd loved your thoughts on this but that's a

00:22:31: fairly efficient way of doing it. I do think we've seen there

00:22:35: are some ways where some of these kind of pilot programs

00:22:39: can become very, very long and a little bit cumbersome.

00:22:42: So I also think making sure that for both utilities and

00:22:47: for companies trying to kind of scale with utilities, making

00:22:51: sure the processes and pilots are efficient and a good use of

00:22:53: their time is also really important.

00:22:55: But again, I think lots of these things are already being done

00:22:58: in practice. We may need to talk about them more and celebrate

00:23:01: more where they're being done initially and well.

00:23:05: Thanks for your view Lucia. Here maybe something to add

00:23:08: my perspective in this respect.

00:23:12: I think two weeks ago there was one year anniversary of

00:23:18: the Draghi report and Mr.Draghi really had a

00:23:22: big message to Europe and all the innovators that we have to

00:23:25: collaborate more and also to close this innovation gap from spin

00:23:29: offs really getting to European champions or global champions.

00:23:33: And that's also in the sense what we are doing at VERBUND

00:23:35: and VERBUND X we believe in the power of collaboration.

00:23:38: Collaboration between the innovation department, venture department

00:23:41: and the business units but also outside to the Startup and innovation

00:23:44: ecosystem because the challenges is too big.

00:23:47: We're looking globally on the same issues, the same challenges

00:23:50: really we have to be more transparent and work together closely.

00:23:55: And what we are also doing is we really using more and

00:23:59: more AI also to speed up our innovation effects.

00:24:02: And that's really as you mentioned, that's incredible about AI,

00:24:05: how AI can help us being more efficient and to speed

00:24:09: up.

00:24:12: Yeah, maybe if we look a little bit in the future, if

00:24:17: you had maybe as Generation, maybe you as person

00:24:22: to place one big bet on an european energy startup today, what would

00:24:26: you look for?

00:24:31: That's a very good question. So in some ways it's

00:24:35: no different to what we look for more broadly.

00:24:38: Right. You really really, you know, we really, really care about

00:24:40: is this a solution that materially improves the system?

00:24:43: Does this really address a real pain point and make it better?

00:24:47: Secondly is, you know, is it a big and proper market?

00:24:50: And secondly, what kind of team is tackling this?

00:24:53: And I think in energy frankly more maybe even so than in other

00:24:56: places. Deep sector expertise just matters

00:24:59: so Much. You know, if I reflect on, to use your language

00:25:03: like the last big bet in quotation marks that we made in

00:25:06: the energy space, I mean arguably was at the end of

00:25:10: last year when with our portfolio company Volue we acquired

00:25:14: actually an Austrian business called Powerbot who have scaled

00:25:18: the leading kind of data science toolkit, the successful trading

00:25:21: and energy market. They've basically built a SaaS product designed

00:25:25: for energy trading companies to automate their short term trading

00:25:29: at power exchanges, but also to really craft strategies that

00:25:33: can help maximize value out of the increasing volatility we're

00:25:37: seeing in energy markets. And again that is, you know, is it

00:25:40: a real deep problem that that team was solving as markets become

00:25:44: far more complicated, as there are more energy markets than ever

00:25:47: before, as Europe moves increasingly to kind of 15 minute

00:25:51: settlement. So with lots and lots of talk about spot 15

00:25:54: recently. So you know, a real deep problem,

00:25:58: but also a team that had built real market credibility and trust

00:26:02: because the product was excellent, because they knew that space

00:26:05: extremely well. And so that for us was very exciting

00:26:08: and I think also a really exciting example of a leading European

00:26:13: solution joining a leading European platform in the energy

00:26:16: space. And hopefully we're really excited to see how together

00:26:19: Volue and Powerbot continue to scale more and more.

00:26:24: That's exciting that you are mentioning an austrian startup.

00:26:27: I remember, well when we first met earlier this year in San

00:26:30: Francisco at your Office, you had a list of Austrian startups

00:26:34: you're monitoring. So what's your view on the

00:26:38: Austrian startup ecosystem in Energy tech?

00:26:40: Do you see there's some dynamics there, maybe not similar

00:26:44: to London, but it's on your radar. That's also a

00:26:49: good message for Austria. Yeah, no, I think we're very excited and

00:26:52: I'm very excited to be coming to Vienna later this year frankly

00:26:55: to get a little bit more involved with the ecosystem and to see

00:26:59: a bit more also the ecosystem that you guys are

00:27:02: building around you of VERBUND and the energy innovation there.

00:27:06: Before we close, maybe a last question from my side.

00:27:08: So I think there are also a lot of founders listening

00:27:12: to the podcasts. So what's your piece of advice you

00:27:16: will give to founders in the energy space on what's important

00:27:20: in times like this to recognize and also to approach

00:27:24: big investors like Generation to be successful in

00:27:27: the end? Well, you know the overarching message, right is one

00:27:32: of thanks because it's founders as you know

00:27:37: the scale of the climate crisis is such that we need so many

00:27:40: people and so many smart and dedicated people to work on

00:27:43: the solutions and I think overall we are just so grateful to

00:27:46: the many founders, who kind of give their time and give all their

00:27:50: energy to being part of the solution to this.

00:27:54: So I think, you know, the privilege of this job is getting to

00:27:56: meet so many deeply committed and smart and thoughtful people

00:28:00: who really, really care about making a positive impact.

00:28:04: But beyond that overarching message of thanks, I think I would

00:28:07: really reiterate those two things I said earlier right that

00:28:10: a

00:28:13: energy as a space is really about building trust and to

00:28:17: really, really focus on that and trust and credibility in the

00:28:20: first instance with a solution that works with a story that works

00:28:23: with a deep understanding of the space because it's a highly

00:28:26: technical and highly complicated space ultimately.

00:28:30: Right. And I think the second thing would be

00:28:33: that thought of building really to the extent you know

00:28:37: every business model is different right.

00:28:38: So these things are hard to generalize for.

00:28:40: But in general where we've seen energy software and sort of

00:28:44: more asset like solutions in the space being very, very efficient

00:28:48: in the early days as you kind of passed as you kind

00:28:51: of pass the chasm of utility of utility pilots or

00:28:56: a building trust if you're sending data to kind of achieve bankability,

00:28:59: being highly efficient been has been a very

00:29:04: very good recipe for many businesses in the past.

00:29:06: Again, there's always the exception that proves the rule and

00:29:10: but think that's a helpful rule of thumb.

00:29:12: Okay, thank you Lucia. I really enjoyed our conversation

00:29:16: today. It was so great to hear your experience and

00:29:20: your perspective on the different issues of energy and innovation.

00:29:23: So really thanks for being with us and to our

00:29:27: listeners. Thank you for joining us on Empowering Tomorrow.

00:29:30: Stay tuned for more conversations with the voices shaping the

00:29:33: future of energy. If you have enjoyed this episode, don't

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