Introducing Convective Capital
A $35M venture capital fund investing in wildfire technology
After WePay’s acquisition by J.P. Morgan, I spent most of my time at our cabin in Boonville, CA — a rural community, population 1,000, in the bucolic Anderson Valley. Coming from San Francisco, it was shocking how much wildfire impacted daily rural life:
- The 2018 Peach Fire was a 90 acre fire that not only threatened our property but also burned along our only escape route.
- My homeowners insurance was dropped — sending me to the CA Fair plan, a very expensive and poor form of insurance.
- On September 9, 2020, many of us woke up in San Francisco to an apocalyptic and indescribably dark and orange day.
- The smell of smoke had become an ever-present part of life in the late summer — causing health impact and affecting everyone’s ability to enjoy California’s beautiful weather.
In addition to local impact, fire also causes broad problems:
- Lives: Research shows that the air quality impact of wildfire is responsible for 33,500 deaths annually.
- Land: In the U.S., an area the size of California (over 100m acres) has burned since I started WePay in 2008.
- Property: Wildfire has caused over $30 billion in property damage in the last decade.
- Carbon: In 2021, wildfires emitted 1.8 billion tons of carbon, an amount larger than all of U.S. transportation or power generation.
- Market Value: The 2018 Camp Fire resulted in $25 billion in liability for PG&E, a guilty plea for homicide and erased over $80 billion in market capitalization, a deficit which continues today.
And while $5B in record funding for wildfire is on its way via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) and the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. Forest Service estimates that $50B in funding is needed to adequately de-risk our forests. The gap is still huge.
Given the intractability of the issue at scale, I first tried to learn as much as I could about wildfire at the local level. Our neighborhood organized a Firesafe council. I joined the Anderson Valley Fire Department as an eager (and still green) rookie. I commenced projects around our property to reduce fuels and improve fire safety. But the more I learned about fire, the more I couldn’t help but think about how technology and startups could play a bigger role in addressing it — both locally and globally.
Throughout my career, I’ve seen over and over how technology and startups can impact the world in an enormous and positive way. As the CEO of WePay, we powered payments for GoFundMe and as partners we helped millions of people give directly to those in need. As an angel investor, I’ve been privileged to back small teams who have impacted the lives of people across the world — like Deel, Lattice, Cambly, Boom and Mercury. The fact that wildfire hadn’t benefitted from this type of innovation felt like a big gap — and opportunity.
I started to learn about the large and growing markets hungry for new solutions, like utilities, insurance companies, landowners, businesses and homeowners. I sought out startups building solutions to wildfire and investing in them— backing Gridware, Delos, Rain, Overstory, BurnBot and Treeswift — and discovering that Firetech was an early but burgeoning movement.
Today, I’m excited to share the next phase of that effort — the close of Fund I of Convective Capital, a $35M pre-seed and seed fund dedicated to backing founders building solutions to wildfire. The market opportunity for fire solutions is large and unfortunately growing fast, and yet venture funding and startup activity is a fraction of what it could be. We are excited to help close that gap.
I’m also thrilled to share the amazing folks that are working alongside me in this exciting mission — including three talented former founders and my longtime chief of staff at WePay:
- Anukool Lakhina, Partner: Founder and former CEO of Guavus (acquired by Thales Group) and co-founder of Wonder-labs.org
- George Whitesides, Partner: Former Chief of Staff at NASA, former CEO of Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) and Chair of U.S. Megafire Action
- Ilya Volodarsky, Partner: Founder and former President of Segment (acquired by Twilio) and founder of Wildfires.org
- Erin Wood, Director of Operations: Former Executive Assistant and Chief of Staff at WePay
- A world-class advisory board bringing relationships and expertise to the firm across forestry, research, philanthropy and the fire service.
Lastly, I’m excited to share some of our initial fund investments in amazing and ambitious teams:
- Pano— camera-based fire detection using AI
- Overstory — satellite-based vegetation analytics for utilities to analyze power line risk
- Plus two others still in stealth!
We have a number of challenges ahead in addressing our wildfire crisis, but we’re excited to do our part — backing founders who are inventing new solutions in concert with government agencies, utilities, insurance companies, landowners and firefighters. Technology cannot solve this problem alone, but it is a powerful force multiplier.
Firetech is the most exciting opportunity in climate, if not all of technology — and we’re thrilled to now be able to share our work at Convective publicly! We envision a future where technology works in concert with firefighters, land managers, homeowners and community leaders to make us all safer and protect our resources and environment.
Technology gets even more exciting when it works together. Imagine the power of a Pano camera detecting fire early followed by a Rain drone extinguishing it. Or Overstory identifying high-risk vegetation and BurnBot treating it. We’re excited to help make these ideas a reality, along with ones we haven’t thought of yet.
Please consider:
- Signing up for our newsletter
- Getting in touch if you are building something in Firetech
- Following Convective and me on Twitter
