By Brynne Kennedy
Managing Partner and Co-Founder, BCP Ventures

I spent a week in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where the theme of this year’s event was “Cooperation in a Fragmented World.”

For most of the week, I discussed this theme in the context of our global energy transition, covering the role – and future – of venture capital in contributing solutions to this and other big macro challenges, and showcasing three BCP Ventures portfolio companies which will play a critical part in our global energy transition.

On the venture capital front, I had many conversations about the future of venture capital, including the role of innovation (and high returns) in reinventing the most foundational parts of our society, and the opportunity for fund and asset tokenization to increase capital and liquidity.

Thanks to Handshake Partners, Hub Culture & DeFiance Media for the video.

As discussed throughout the week, the clean energy transition – and path to net zero by 2050 – requires a complete transformation of our global energy supply and technology, a total rethinking of our geopolitical landscape and roughly $100 trillion in investment over the next three decades.

Put simply, it is both the greatest political challenge and investment opportunity of the modern era. We will only solve it with deep cooperation between capital, innovation and legislation.

We founded BCP Ventures last year on just this premise – to bring together our experience in finance, tech entrepreneurship and politics, and reinvent how society works in partnership with the world’s greatest entrepreneurs. As David Livingston, Special Advisor to US Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, said to me on the flight home: “So few investors are approaching this a collaboration between innovators and policy. It’s refreshing and we want to work with you and your companies.”

One of the most memorable events of the week on this topic was an intimate roundtable called “Redefining Energy Security,” hosted by Michael Perkinson of Guggenheim Partners, Jason Bordoff, Founding Director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and Tom Donilon, Chairman of the Blackrock Investment Institute, with many notable energy leaders in attendance from government, academia and corporations.

We discussed the need for greater renewable energy investment, collaboration with fossil fuels to ensure energy resilience, affordability and reduced environmental impact amid the transition, and the need to reduce energy demand while increasing supply. Collectively, these offer huge opportunities for investors like us and the entrepreneurs we back.

Too often, forums like Davos lack discussion about the important role of entrepreneurs and venture capital investors in this transition, so I was pleased to remind attendees last week that a successful global energy transition requires, not only policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, investments from large asset managers and corporations, and global dialogues like those at Davos and Cop27, but also great entrepreneurs creating pioneering technology solutions and backed by venture capitalists like BCP Ventures who help them scale and succeed.

As such, it was a real privilege to bring three of our portfolio companies with us to Davos and partner with consultancy Handshake Partners to develop a targeted energy transition program (massive thanks to JR Kerr, Anne McPherson and Andrew Kalish).

BCP Ventures Managing Partner and Co-Founder Brynne Kennedy, with BCP portfolio company executives (L to R): Tyson Butler – Elite Measurement Co-Founder and CFO, Alexandra Rasch Castillo – Caban Systems Founder and CEO, and Blaine Mathieu – Pratexo CEO

Caban Systems is replacing diesel generators, providing renewable backup power to critical infrastructure (starting with telecommunications) and creating a new decentralized green grid. The company is growing triple digits, just raised a big Series B (we led this) and currently operates in 12 countries with many more in the pipeline. At Davos, CEO and Founder Alexandra Rasch Castillo met with presidents, energy ministers, telecom CEOs and investors.

Pratexo provides edge network software that connects decentralized power generation and reduces energy demand, just as critical to our energy transition as increasing the supply of renewable energy like Caban Systems. Their software is in the early innings of underpinning future EV charging networks, smart grids and buildings, and at Davos, CEO Blaine Mathieu met with leaders at global electricity companies and investors to share the company’s vision for the future.

I left Davos feeling that the talk of the town in the energy transition circles of Davos was our portfolio company Elite Measurement. EM sells technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the speed to sale for oil and gas producers. Co-Founder and CFO Tyson Butler met with strategy and sustainability leaders from oil and gas majors, who seemed be both intrigued by EM’s technology and grateful that BCP Ventures (and Elite Measurement) recognize the opportunity – and need – to invest in solutions for oil and gas majors, alongside pure renewable solutions.

Speaking of which, perhaps the biggest highlight of Davos for me personally was engaging with oil and gas leaders on the future of energy. Often disregarded at events like Davos, I found a genuine desire to engage on technologies and partnerships for a cleaner, greener industry and with investors like BCP Ventures who invest across the energy transition spectrum – from oil and gas “greenification” technologies like Elite Measurement, to demand reduction software like Pratexo, to pure renewable power generation innovations like Caban Systems.

I left Davos excited about the massive investment opportunity to reinvent our trillion-dollar foundational industries with some of the world’s best entrepreneurs – and about the engagement I witnessed between political, policy and corporate leaders, and entrepreneurs and investors, like BCP Ventures and our three portfolio companies.