Thank you to this week’s sponsor:

Accelerating Impact - a non-profit advancing impact finance by mobilizing capital and running free accelerator programs for emerging fund managers. Join for expert coaching, training, financial support, and a strong community. Apply here.

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🌊 Hardware Is Hard. That’s the Point.

What it really takes to fund, build, and scale climate hardware in Europe

We’re joined by Jessica Burley, Investor at Planet A Ventures, one of Europe’s leading climate and deep tech VCs pioneering a science-based approach to venture capital.

In this episode, we dive into why climate hardware is fundamentally different from software — and unpack what it really takes for founders and investors to scale atoms (not just bits) without breaking the cap table.

From capital stacks and bankability to team composition and customer urgency, this is a grounded, insider conversation for anyone building or backing climate infrastructure.

In our conversation, we covered:

→ Why hardware isn’t broken — but VCs need a new playbook

→ The real reason climate hardware fails (hint: it’s not the science)

→ How to structure a capital stack beyond pure equity

→ What “bankability” actually means for first-of-a-kind plants

→ Why sustainability alone doesn’t close customers

→ Where climate hardware is quietly becoming profitable right now

Thank you to this week’s sponsor:

Accelerating Impact - a non-profit advancing impact finance by mobilizing capital and running free accelerator programs for emerging fund managers. Join for expert coaching, training, financial support, and a strong community. Apply here.

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🌊 How To Commercialize Science

Why Europe’s world-class research rarely becomes global companies, and how to fix it.

We’re joined by Erik Engellau-Nilsson, Founder of Norrsken Launcher and former CEO of the Norrsken Foundation, one of Europe’s most influential platforms for impact-driven entrepreneurship.

In this episode, we dive into why most science never leaves the lab, and unpack what it really takes to turn deep tech and climate breakthroughs into scalable, profitable companies. From cap tables and commercialization risk to why the VC model fails scientists, Erik shares a brutally honest view of what’s broken and what actually works.

In our conversation, we covered:

→ Why great science gets stuck in universities

→ The cultural gap between scientists and company builders

→ Norrsken Launcher’s hands-on model: fewer bets, deeper ownership

→ Why Europe produces world-class science, but not world-class companies

→ Clean cap tables, IP ownership, and the “teacher’s exemption.”

→ Strategic investors: accelerator or hidden landmine?

→ Why “patient capital” is often the wrong answer

→ How to build climate and deep tech companies that actually scale

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This week on New Wave Weekly:

👉 AI won’t magically invent new materials

AlphaFold worked because biology had great data. Inorganic materials don’t. Sparse datasets, missing thermodynamics, and poor characterization remain the biggest blockers.

👉 The real moat is synthesis, not models

From rare-earth-free magnets to catalysts, value is created in the lab: making, characterizing, and scaling materials that actually work in the real world.

👉 Vertical beats generalist (for now)

Foundational models are capital-intensive moonshots. Highly verticalized plays, magnets, catalysts, specific industrial use cases, have a much clearer path to market.

👉 Commercialization is brutally hard

Discovery is step one. Producing at scale, at cost, and getting industry adoption is where most materials stories break, graphene being the cautionary tale.

👉 Europe’s materials moment?

With critical minerals concentrated in China, supply-chain security is creating real pull from industrial players, not just curiosity, but urgency.

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Wave Makers:

Matt - Voyager Ventures

Robina - Contrarian

Vera - Apex Ventures

Hugo - New Wave