Motion Capital

I've been a fan of Lowercarbon Capital for many years. Their frank tone and commercial approach has shaped climate VC globally. As part of the Invest New Zealand VC delegation to San Francisco, I was delighted to meet Partner Shuo Yang and hear his personal journey, thoughts on climate-tech and New Zealand. A few nuggets: - Entrepreneurship is a deeply personal journey, and supporting founders as individuals on this path with empathy, trust and a genuine connection is the role of a good investor - Human behaviour is very difficult to change, and climate-tech companies need to make better economic sense to their customers in order to appeal to humanity's baser instincts - As an early-stage investor, you need to make peace with what is knowable and unknowable - Lowercarbon has seen much more credible climate-tech companies from NZ per capita than Australia Inspired by his wonder at humanity's achievements in art, Shuo Yang is optmistic for our ability to repond to climate change. It's awesome that the inimitable Elena Mosse, a kiwi citizen, has just joined Lowercarbon Capital. Kiwi climate-tech founders take note. I asked for Shuo Yang's autograph, and unfortunately all I had on me was this term sheet! #tewakahourua #nzte #investnewzealand Carl Jones Bridget Unsworth Jack McQuire Mark Vivian Angus Blair Guy Royal Hugo Fisher Mitali Purohit Nadine Hill Kate de Ridder Renata Hakiwai James Pinner Prue Halstead Anthony Mosse M.B.E. Jonathan Wells Dylan Lawrence Georgia Mills, CA Erin Grueber John Kells

In partnership with our friends at Forsyth Barr Limited and GD1 (Global From Day One), we're hosting a dinner in San Francisco this Friday the 12th to showcase New Zealand tech start-ups and venture capital. We're promoting the new Active Investor Plus program, which has already attracted some exceptional individuals to Motion Capital's fund and to New Zealand. If you are a kiwi in SF interested in what's happening back home, or an American interested in the kiwi investment opportunities & the visa program, please join us! We even have some classic kiwi tucker! If you know anyone in SF that could be keen, please tag them below or let us know separately. Tim Crawford John Kells Vignesh Kumar James Usmar https://lnkd.in/gTrZWu66

We’re thrilled to be leading a $10m capital raise into Zincovery, a Christchurch-based start-up commecialising a process technology to decarbonise the zinc dust recycling industry. Zinc dust, a hazardous by-product of steel manufacturing, currently requires large quantities of coal to recycle and extract the valuable zinc from it. Zincovery has developed a groundbreaking alternative process using small amounts of hydrogen and a novel acid-leach that avoids 95% of the emissions associated with the incumbent technology, while being 45% cheaper. Thanks very much to our fantastic due diligence team Dr. Merv Jones, Nick Couch, Tanisha Vithal and Lachlan Nixon. The transaction now has $7.5m commited from Motion Capital, Investible, Icehouse Ventures, Outset Ventures, K1W1 and NZ Growth Capital Partners. Thank you very much to Fiona Rotherham at the NBR - National Business Review for covering Zincovery’s progress recently https://shorturl.at/BsKJP (paywall). Why are we investing? Click below to see our investment notes. https://lnkd.in/g6yQF3Xr Jonathan Ring, Leatham Landon-Lane, Aaron Marshall Ben Lindsay Jo Wickham Damon Crowe Byron van Vugt Yim Lui (Lucy) Law

We're excited to be partnering with Future Wynyard 2050 to deliver a 48hr climate hackathon this Friday and Saturday in Auckland's Wynyard Quarter. Wynyard Quarter has become a local corporate hub, and we're delighted to be working alongside sponsors IBM, Chorus NZ Limited, Fonterra, Kiwibank, Mott MacDonald, Precinct Properties, TSA Riley and Datacom, each of which will be presenting a sustainability challenge they face for the hackathon teams to solve. Interested in solving climate challenges? This is an excellent opportunity to workshop potential solutions to real local coporate sustainability problems. Join us by registering at the link below. https://lnkd.in/gxwUnbS7 Climate Connect Aotearoa Catrin Kemp Catriona Stewart Lachlan Nixon Husain Al-Badry 🇵🇸 GridAKL

Come along the the inaugural Climate Tech Summit Aotearoa next Thursday afternoon in Wellington! Everyone will be there, and so should you. Hosted at the historic St James Theatre, it will be an excellent showcase of kiwi climate innovation, including several Motion Capital portfolio companies. Additionally, I have it on good authority that the snacks will be of top quality. I will be speaking and we will be unveiling some new investments, as well as the $100k winner(s) of the 2024 Creative HQ Climate Response Accelerator. Register here - https://lnkd.in/gw_Tjgnn (Message me for a discount code 😉) WellingtonNZ Creative HQ WellingtonNZ Tech Sector Joe Slater Catherine Jones Colm Kearney Holly Beals

We're stoked to unveil Motion Capital's new brand and website, which showcases our business, investment strategy and our awesome portfolio companies. Check it out at the link below! There were a number of people involved in making this happen. Thanks very much to Simon Pound, James Hurman, Previously Unavailable, Joshua Heares, Becca O'Shea, N4 Studio®, Lydia Smit, Sam Scrimgeour and Elliot Maher.

Congratulations to our portfolio company Aspiring Materials for being named as one of the top 25 clean-tech companies in APAC by Cleantech Group. Identified as "having the potential to make a significant impact in the region in a five-to-ten-year time frame", Aspiring Materials is profiled and highlighted in the report alongside some interesting facts and figures about clean-tech investment around APAC. Congratulations also to our friends at Zincovery and Geo40 Limited, both kiwi clean-tech companies that are also named. Great to see 3 kiwi companies out of the 25! Christopher Oze Mark Chadderton Phil Anderson Jonathan Ring John

We've recently led $8m of investment into Miruku to re-write the rules of dairy production. Miruku is developing capability to program the safflower plant to produce dairy proteins and fats, which are traditionally made by cows. This allows dairy production at a significantly cheaper cost, as well as with significantly less environmental impact, than traditional animal agriculture. This is another excellent example of a technology company that is making it cheaper to save the world than to destroy it. Thanks very much to our due diligence team which included the inimitable Maya Benami, PhD and Jamie Wood. Thanks also to our co-investors Movac, NZ Growth Capital Partners, Icehouse Ventures, Northington Partners and NZVC. We're excited to be supporting Amos Palfreyman, Abby Thompson, Ira Bing, Thomas Buchanan, Oded Shoseyov and Harjinder Singh as they advance the development of Miruku's dairy seeds, conduct trials in support of regulatory approvals, and co-develop products with food industry partners. Thanks very much to Christine Hall and TechCrunch for the coverage.

We're delighted to be partnering with Creative HQ to deliver the 2024 Climate Response Accelerator. We're looking forward to working alongside their excellent team to support and fund the next generation of impactful companies tackling climate change. If you are a kiwi start-up company with a climate focus, consider applying on the link below (applications close by the 11th of Feb). There's some great people and support involved and funding up for grabs. https://lnkd.in/dUzyS-W

Today, we’re excited to announce the 2023 Cohort of Breakthrough Energy Fellows. The BE Fellows program supports early-stage climate innovators and business leaders to develop and scale critical clean energy solutions. Learn more about our newest Fellows companies and submit your application to join the next BE Fellows cohort: https://nt-z.ro/3Q1KK4V