Piva Capital’s Summer Associates Program: Meet the Class of 2024
It’s summertime, and while, for many, it’s time to sit back and unwind — Piva Capital welcomes a new group of aspiring venture capitalists through our Summer Associates Program (SAP). Now in its fifth year, the program empowers endeavoring investors to build a unique investment thesis, learn about the venture ecosystem, and develop new networks. In addition to supporting deal flow and investment work, each associate dives deep into a specific sector within Piva’s area of focus and creates a unique investment thesis on the space over the summer.
When I joined Piva as a Summer Associate, working with the team gave me a whole new perspective on venture capital and its role in innovation and the energy transition. The program is a great way to roll up your sleeves and experience a real taste of the job in a short time. I am so excited to be working with our Summer Associates this year and I hope they have as engaging of a summer experience as I did.
We are excited to introduce three incredible new associates — Bharti Singhla, Leon Tong and Sebastian Startz. Get to know them below, and discover why they are excited to participate in Piva’s SAP.
Bharti Singhla
One of the biggest destructors of biodiversity has historically been mining. The climate transition is increasing the demand for critical minerals, but doing so sustainably is essential for the planet. I want to learn more from companies working on critical minerals that don’t rely on mining but can extract these from alternate sources.
Raised in Himachal, India, Bharti earned her degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi. After her undergrad, she worked briefly as a management consultant at Boston Consulting. Then she co-founded Chakr Innovation, a leading cleantech startup in India that uses material science innovation to reduce air pollution from diesel engines. She was first exposed to venture capital at Chakr, where she raised several funding rounds. After her time at Chakr, she moved to California to attend Stanford, where she is earning her MS in Environment and Resources and MBA.
On the personal side, her upbringing in the mountains gave her a passion for hiking and camping. She has done several impressive treks in the Himalayas and even climbed Kilimanjaro.
Q&A with Bharti
What do you believe are the biggest challenges that industry is facing today?
Regarding climate and deep tech, the biggest challenge for VC is having the patient capital that can realize returns over a longer time horizon. The age of software has significantly changed expectations for the time horizon for VC returns, making it harder for VCs to invest in long-term but high-return businesses.
What’s a top macro trend in the future of industry and climate that you are following?
One of the rising macro trends within climate is the recognition of the role of biodiversity. Similar to the COP for climate change, we are now seeing a rise in commitments by nations in the Biodiversity COP and building awareness in the consumers for the need to look beyond carbon-dioxide emissions to ecosystem restoration and building climate tech while enabling biodiversity conservation.
What drew you to Piva’s Summer Associate Program? What are you most excited to learn during your time at Piva?
Piva’s vision of transforming the Industry for People and the Planet resonates deeply with my experience building a hardware tech company in India. Piva Capital is one of the leading deep-tech climate VCs in the world and has made stellar investments in the space. I am excited to learn more about the space while at Piva, especially to understand how things are different in the US and build a venture capital mindset.
Leon Tong
As an engineer wired to identify problems by first principles, I look forward to leveraging the expertise of Piva’s investment team and venture partners to learn how to build convictions. Ultimately, I hope to become comfortable underwriting deep-tech startups’ technology risks, and to further polish my investing lens.
Leon was born and raised in Hong Kong and moved to the U.S. to attend Notre Dame, where he earned a BS in Chemical Engineering and received the Vincent Slatt Fellowship to conduct second-generation biofuel research. Currently, he is pursuing an MBA with concentrations in Finance and ESG at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
While an undergrad, he interned at a cigar factory in the Dominican Republic, where he collaborated effectively with local workers to institute a humidity control protocol for tobacco fermentation. He subsequently joined GlobalFoundries and managed manufacturing processes and operations for a 14-nm node FinFET chip technology. He later moved to Utah to join Micron Technology, where he helped scale the production of non-volatile memory technology.
His VC exposure includes organizing Kauffman Foundation’s 1 Million Cup community, serving as an ambassador for CleantechOpen, and interning with Freshwater Advisors. While at Darden, he participated in the Venture Capital club, completed an internship with a hard tech fund, and researched infrastructure opportunities for bioeconomy growth with an industrial tech fund.
Leon’s time in Utah converted him into a powder-loving skier. When not on the slopes, he is developing his amateur barista skills and working towards perfecting latte art at home.
Q&A with Leon:
What do you believe are the biggest challenges that industry is facing today?
Coming from a hardware manufacturing background, I see scaling as the biggest challenge, because of the complex capital structure and delays in subsidy rollout. First-of-a-kind (FOAK) requires multiple funding sources, such as venture debts, bank loans, venture equity, and government loans. VCs or CVCs could facilitate off-take agreements, thereby lowering the investment hurdle rates and risks for other types of equity investors and banks to back such projects. Looking forward, I think we will see more novel financial derivatives emerge as the market looks for solutions to FOAK financing challenges.
What’s a top macro trend in the future of industry and climate that you are following?
I firmly believe that water and ocean tech will be the next hot topic in the climate space. While 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by water, only 0.4% of the world’s water is drinkable water. Supply reliability will continue to be threatened as droughts become more prevalent. Furthermore, water is used in almost all industries that enable the lifestyle we enjoy today, such as food & beverage, agriculture, refining, mining, and microelectronics manufacturing. These industries require wastewater treatment. Investing in water technologies would allow these industries to drive down wastewater treatment costs, increase process efficiency, and reduce energy consumption, thereby bringing them closer to net zero goals. Water tech’s horizontal scalability across many sectors makes it a compelling investment area for climate venture investors.
How do you think AI will impact climate technologies?
AI’s ability to simulate and expedite new discoveries in novel material synthesis, more energy-efficient chemical process pathways, and more optimized industrial plant designs will speed up existing climate technology development and give rise to a new generation of climate technologies. We have already seen the successful expedition of drug discoveries yielding promising results. For example, a BCG study cited that 80–90% of AI-discovered molecules were successful in Phase 1 clinical studies.
Sebastian Startz
I am especially interested in working with companies in the energy sector — there has been tremendous innovation in recent years spanning investments in the grid, energy production, and storage. Similarly, I am excited to work with companies decarbonizing heavy industry. A significant opportunity exists to transition industrial companies to more sustainable technological alternatives.
Sebastian grew up in Oxbow, a small farming community in North Dakota. He studied financial economics at Columbia University, where he graduated magna cum laude. Currently, he is working on an MBA at Wharton.
Prior to business school, he worked in strategic finance at MycoWorks, a climate tech startup commercializing a leather biomaterial made of mycelium. He also worked as an investment banker at Nomura and private equity investor at H.I.G. Capital, where he advised and invested in consumer and technology companies.
In his spare time, he loves running long distances — having completed four ultramarathons. He also loves gardening, tinkering in the kitchen, and eating spicy foods — even placing third at the New York Hot Sauce Expo for eating a pint of spicy ice cream the fastest.
Q&A with Sebastian
What do you believe are the biggest challenges that industry is facing today?
One of the biggest challenges companies are facing is navigating the commercialization “valley of death,” or the transition from pilot to commercial scale. As the climate tech industry matured, more companies prototyped their technology and entered their scaling phase. However, the uncertain macroeconomic environment and high costs of financing make their cost of failure steep, especially for companies taking first-of-a-kind technologies from the lab to the factory. Government incentives and alternative forms of financing have now entered the capital stack, which will help climate tech companies navigate through the valley and de-risk the development of commercial-scale projects.
How do you think AI will impact climate technologies?
Artificial Intelligence is becoming an essential element in climate tech, and I am especially excited about the intersection of software and hardware. One benefit of AI is synthesizing and analyzing vast amounts of data. Different data sources, from Internet of Things sensors in a factory to satellite imagery of a field, can be used to make predictions, optimize processes, and enhance decision-making. Much of the deep decarbonization in industry will require significant hardtech breakthroughs at scale. AI will improve prototyping speed and costs, help optimize production, and accelerate implementation and adoption.
In addition, the rise of AI and the need for computing will create significant strain on our existing power grid. Further efforts to decarbonize data centers and power processing with renewable sources of electricity will be necessary to keep up with the demand for processing capacity.
What drew you to Piva’s Summer Associate Program? What are you most excited to learn during your time at Piva?
I was drawn to Piva’s summer program due to the focus on disruptive climate technologies and track record of a summer intern program. I am so excited to work with and learn from Piva’s network this summer! The team of investors, scientists, and operators will help me deepen my investing acumen, so I am eager to learn how to evaluate early-stage investments and develop a perspective on the management team and technology. I am looking forward to conducting deep research and learning more about decarbonizing energy and industry.
