91 Michael Smith - Investing in regenerative startups

Catherine is talking to Michael Smith, General Partner of Regeneration.VC, an investment fund set up earlier in 2022 that is investing in solutions addressing the climate emergency.

The Regeneration.VC advisory board includes Bill McDonough, one of the early and leading thinkers on the circular economy, and co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. The board also includes Leonardo di Caprio, Academy Award®-winning actor, producer, and activist, and a longtime champion of global environmental issues.

Michael explains how Regeneration.VC is focusing on potential game changers – for example, those using biomimetic approaches to innovation for materials, or on new recycling technology – and why it’s important to focus on regenerative innovations, as well as circular models.

We hear about Regeneration.VC’s investment strategy, which looks at new ventures through 3 lenses: design (systems and materials inspired by natural processes), use (circular brands and products) and reuse (technologies repurposing materials and products).

Michael shares highlights of a few of the companies in the portfolio and explains why he thinks they are such exciting investments.

Podcast host Catherine Weetman is a circular economy business advisor, workshop facilitator, speaker and writer. Her award-winning book: A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business includes lots of practical examples and tips on getting started. Catherine founded Rethink Global in 2013, to help businesses use circular, sustainable approaches to build a better business (and a better world).

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Read on for a summary of the podcast and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention.

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Links we mention in the episode:

A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business – buy from any good bookseller, or direct from the publisher Kogan Page, which ships worldwide (free shipping to UK and US) and you can use discount code CIRCL20 to get 20% off. It’s available in paperback, ebook and Kindle. If you buy it from online sources, make sure you choose the new edition with an orange cover!
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/regenerationvc/
Website: https://regeneration.vc
Wall Street Journal – https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-markets-reel-startups-hope-for-flat-rounds-11654768801
Forbes – https://www.forbes.com/sites/douglasyu/2022/04/22/leonardo-dicaprio-backed-climate-fund-regenerationvc-closes-45-million-to-bring-sustainability-across-omnichannel/?sh=798194b211bf and https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2022/04/20/with-leonardo-dicaprio-as-an-advisor-45-million-circularregenerative-economy-fund-launches/?sh=4255e457001d
Protocol – https://www.protocol.com/climate/regeneration-vc-leonardo-dicaprio
Impact – https://readtheimpact.com/the-leo-dicaprio-backed-circular-economy-driven-vc/
Regeneration.VC impact report https://s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/regeneration.vc/assets/documents/Impact-Report_compressed-1.pdf
Recommended guest Yael Shermer, co-founder of Tulu.io – https://tulu.io/
Episode 43 Richard James MacCowan on Biomimicry – the Biomimicry Innovation Lab has a mission to inspire and share how the natural world can deliver unique solutions by radically reducing the need for resources. We talk about different aspects of biomimicry and how it can inform the design of objects, systems and much more. https://www.rethinkglobal.info/episode-43-richard-james-maccowan-of-biomimicry-innovation-lab/

About Michael Smith

Michael Smith is a General Partner of Regeneration.VC, investing in solutions addressing the climate emergency. In addition to investing in over 30 companies prior to this role, he brings years of environmental organizing experience, having formed Ponvalley, an environmental initiative comprised of philanthropy, research and impact investments and Shared Mission, an emergency climate summit with Former US Vice President Al Gore and General Wesley Clark, the Department of Energy and Harvard.

Previously, he founded and operated media and real estate businesses, including Smith Broadcasting (sold to Boston Ventures), LA & SF real estate firm, Creative Space (exited) and global music provider, The Playlist Generation (exited), after touring as an international DJ opening for artists such as Rihanna, Guns N Roses and Kanye West.

Interview Transcript

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Want to find out more about the circular economy?

If you’d like to learn more about the circular economy and how it could help your business, why not listen to Episode 1, or read our guide: What is the Circular Economy?

To go deeper, you could buy Catherine’s book, A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business. This comprehensive guide uses a bottom-up, practical approach, and includes hundreds of real examples from around the world, to help you really ‘get’ the circular economy. Even better, you’ll be inspired with ideas to make your own business more competitive, resilient and sustainable.

Please let us know what you think of the podcast – and we’d love it if you could leave us a review on iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Or send us an email…

Podcast music

Thanks to Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow, otherwise known as the brilliant, inventive and generous folk duo, O’Hooley & Tidow for allowing me to use the instrumentals from the live version of Summat’s Brewin’ as music for the podcast. You can find the whole track (inspired by the Copper Family song “Oh Good Ale”) on their album, also called Summat’s Brewin’. Or, follow them on Twitter.

82 – Maria Westerbos – Plastic Soup Foundation

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Maria Westerbos tells about the groundbreaking work of the Plastic Soup Foundation. Many of us are becoming increasingly aware of the amount of plastic in our lives – whether it is clothing and household textiles made from synthetic fibres like polyester, acrylic, lycra and so on, or the anti-crease finishes, flame retardants and other additives in those fibres. And of…

81 – René Bethmann – circular designs for outdoor sports gear

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How do we navigate the tensions of having brilliant products that help us enjoy outdoor activities, yet which are difficult to repair and recycle? René Bethmann specializes in textile and apparel technology, and is leading new approaches to the design of more circular products and materials at Vaude Sports. René focuses on emotional durability, repairability and renewable or recyclable materials.…

80 – Evolving and scaling

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If you are a regular listener, you’ll know that every 10th episode, Catherine zooms in on one or two of the common themes from the last series of interviews. In the last series, we’ve heard from 4 businesses and 3 social enterprises, based in Australia, The Netherlands, France, Spain, the UK and the USA. What stood out this time was…

Ep79 Jordi Ferre – value from wine waste

79 Jordi Ferre – creating value from wine waste

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You may be surprised to learn that, Instead of becoming waste for landfill, grape skins and other unused parts of grapes from the wine-making process can then go on to create important ingredients to support healthy living, which are used in supplements, foods and beverages. Alvinesa Natural Ingredients based in Spain, is a “circular economy” leader of sustainable plant-based ingredients.…

78 Colin Church – complex challenges for materials

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Colin Church, Chief Executive of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, the global network for the materials cycle – also known as IOM3, guides us through topics including critical materials, the complexities of modern supply chains, transparency and Life Cycle Analysis, the challenges of how we ensure fair shares of finite resources and much more.

91 Michael Smith – Investing in regenerative startups