Cleantech scaleup climate impact assessment framework.

What Renault 5 might mean for the EU car industry.

The humble transformer is at the heart of the electric grid. And for decades, it’s been a tailor-made marvel. Engineers loved the craft, utilities loved the high price that they passed on to consumers, and factories loved having “just the right” unit. But times changed, and the transformer industry didn’t. Until now. Meet One Power, a U.S. company taking the most boring, glacial, and conservative part of the grid… and flipping it on its head. Not by reinventing the tech, but

My full breakdown is now live: What’s working, what’s missing, and what scaleups, especially in cleantech and manufacturing, can do today without waiting for Brussels.

Would you consider using second-hand equipment for your pilot/demo/FOAK?

Check out my review of Dr. Funk's book, where I highlighted some key takeaways, like why hype has replaced productivity, why consultants always win first, and what it means for anyone evaluating early-stage tech in climate and beyond.

How to transform from project to product.

Can you find unicorns in water? There is a hype around water tech startups. Climate is changing, and some countries, such as Turkey, where I currently reside, could face severe water shortages. The recent documentary by Sir David Attenborough spurred more enthusiasm for investing in water startups. I am all for Sir Attenborough’s art and insights. But art is one thing, and investments are another. The only possible unicorn in a water business would resemble Water and Power Co

They IPO’d before raising VC. Here’s why that was genius. ATOME Energy didn’t follow the usual startup playbook. No pre-seed. No seed. No “100-slide deck for Sand Hill Road.” Instead, they went public. Early. That’s not just bold - it’s strategic. 💡 Why? Because in capital-intensive, FOAK-scale cleantech, your biggest bottleneck isn’t idea validation. It’s credibility. To secure $400M in project finance, off-take agreements, and long-term power deals in emerging markets… You

You don’t need to have a financial degree or a background in finance to understand the key principles of funding a FOAK.

Off-takes are the holy grail of climatetech FOAKs. Conditional off-takes are the norm. Is there another way?

Don’t play with the government. That’s a rule my father taught me. He built his business in the 90s and early 2000s in Russia. He knew first hand that the government will screw you over faster than your private sector partner and in worse ways. For a long time, I thought that this rule applied only to authoritarian states like Russia, where the law is weak. The current passing of the “Big Beautiful Bill” in the US now shows that it is true for the West as well. The Inflation

Hear Olivier Mussat, the CEO and founder of ATOME, about the role of fertilizers.

A review of possibly the most comprehensive collection of real-world examples for getting cleantech from the lab to steel-in-the-ground scale. If you’re in the weeds of building a FOAK (First-of-a-Kind) project, or advising someone who is, this report deserves a place on your desk.

A climate tech idea that needs more energy than it saves? That’s not innovation. That’s a waste.

Climeworks is back in the news—and not for the reason they’d like. Reports from Heimildin and others claim that their latest DAC (direct air capture) facility might not even cover its own emissions. That’s a brutal blow for a company that promised to remove 1% of global CO₂ by 2025. Their CEO Jan Wurzbacher published a response . He acknowledged commissioning problems, but didn’t refute the claim that the total carbon footprint may be net positive. That’s a hard pill to swal

How can you hype up, raise investments, burn the money, and do it all again? I have no idea, but life proves that it is possible, again and again.

During my time scaling up climate tech, I wouldn’t touch government grants. Even when they could clearly reduce my capital costs, help to avoid dilution and generally help to speed up a project. In Russia, dealing with government money means that sooner or later, you’ll have a budget controller knocking at your door, whose sole purpose is to find out how you misused public funds, so that he can ransom money from you or throw you into jail. The jail could actually be the first

Working capital is a big challenge for B2C solar and storage startups. Or is it?

This year, the mood at the Smarter E Europe expo in Munich is different. With many EU battery startups going under, the only way to survive is to find the right partner from Asia.