The biggest problem, the biggest opportunity.
This is the Dec. 7, 2021 edition of the Opportunity Miami newsletter, which we send every Tuesday. Click here to subscribe to get our weekly updates in your inbox.
Following a week in Miami when the many tech events prompted several to observe that Art Basel felt more like “Tech Basel,” venture capital investor Clay Dumas has a message for entrepreneurs: how does your product apply to climate?
“This is the single biggest opportunity that’s existed since the early parts of the 20th century,” said Dumas, a founding partner of Lowercarbon Capital, on our recent Opportunity Miami podcast. “If you don’t see that already, you will start to feel it.”
The past week vividly illustrated the crypto enthusiasm rippling across Miami. There is little doubt it will be a key driver to Miami’s economic future — but Dumas thinks it won’t be the only one.
“Crypto is obviously a huge opportunity,” said Dumas, adding, “But in the same breath, let’s talk about climate and how a city like Miami — that is on the front lines — can actually be in a position to lead the charge.”
Earlier this year, Dumas launched Lowercarbon Capital, an $800 million fund, with Chris and Crystal Sacca, who were behind the famously successful Lowercase Capital fund. Just as Lowercase realized new fortunes from investing in early-stage tech companies like Uber and Twitter, Lowercarbon is betting on similarly outsized returns investing in the startups that will transition the global economy into one no longer spewing planet-warming gases.
The fund’s focus is in three areas: slashing CO2 emissions, sucking carbon out of the air, and buying time. This ranges from investing in companies building emission-free electric airplanes and boats, reimagining flood insurance, producing carbon-free building materials like cement, retrofitting existing cooling towers to pull carbon out of the air, to developing computer-generated models that assess the climate risk to structures like factories and offices. Already they’ve invested in some three dozen companies.
Fundamental is the idea that our greatest challenges present our biggest opportunities.
Climate change, Dumas said, is “the single biggest problem that we can solve, and the single biggest opportunity from a financial standpoint.”
Yet, as Dumas explains it, no city or region has established itself as the place building the climate tech companies of the future.
How to become one of these cities, he said, includes a range of factors, such as: local governments leading by example by doing things like swapping out gas-powered buses with electric fleets or adopting the use of sustainable building materials; policy reforms that serve to multiply these activities; universities leaning in; and recruiting talent and incubators in the name of driving greater climate tech innovation within existing businesses and startups.
But most of all, he said, continue talking about it across the community and make it a priority, shifting the approach to focus on what’s possible.
“So much is focused on the gloom and doom and how it’s going to get worse, but what we see in our portfolio is the exact opposite,” said Dumas.
We hope you’ll listen or watch the conversation with Dumas as we all continue to think about the future we want for Miami.
It’s been three weeks since we launched Opportunity Miami. This is the start of a collective effort to help catalyze a long-term vision for Miami’s economic future — and rally the community to create it. If you’re just learning about us, you can go to our website or read this op-ed that was published in The Miami Herald.
Please subscribe to listen or watch our new podcast that will be released every other week. And please invite friends to subscribe to our newsletter, which will be emailed to inboxes each Tuesday morning. We hope you will engage with us on social media channels at @opportunitymia. And, as always, we would love to hear from you at next@opportunity.miami.
With Miami’s future in mind, on Wednesday I’ll speak at the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce’s Alvah H. Chapman Jr. Awards, on “Building our Future, Together: Imagining Miami 2040.” The event will honor Bill Talbert, who led the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau for many years, Miami Marathon founder Frankie Ruiz, Camillus House, and Lawrence H. “Larry” Adams.
Hope to see you,
Matt Haggman
Opportunity Miami
@matthaggman
Photo (top) by Kristin Wilson on Unsplash. Opportunity Miami is powered by the Miami-Dade Beacon Council.
