Climate VCs gets organized around Kamala Harris
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A who's who in the climate VC and founder world have organized behind Kamala Harris — and trying to boost clean tech's election-season political strength.
Why it matters: "There's a substantial amount of political power and sort of latent capacity that has been untapped among the emerging climate industrialists," says Shomik Dutta, co-founder of the firm Overture.
Driving the news: He's among the people behind "Climate for Kamala," a new initiative hoping to raise over $5 million for her campaign.
- They already have $2.5 million committed and will host a New York City fundraiser during the big annual Climate Week NYC next month, he says.
- The WSJ reported last week on the initiative.
State of play: A brief list of participants includes:
- Elemental Excelerator founder and CEO Dawn Lippert.
- MCJ managing partners Cody Simms and David Aronoff.
- Lowercarbon Capital's Chris Sacca and Clay Dumas.
- Obvious Ventures managing director Andrew Beebe.
- Congruent Ventures managing partner and co-founder Abe Yokell.
Behind the scenes: A zoom call two weeks ago helped launch the effort, Dutta says.
- That call was joined by Harris climate adviser Ike Irby, Michael Pratt, a top finance official on the campaign, and Crooked Media founder Jon Favreau.
The big picture: The fundraiser will help plug people into existing networks like the group Clean Energy for America, he said.
- Dutta notes there are tens of thousands of people building climate-related businesses in states nationwide — including battlegrounds.
- Organizing people in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania will follow the fundraiser, he said.
- He ticked off practices like tech-enhanced "relational organizing." Think helping people working in sectors like solar and wind communicate about the election's high stakes for their industries.
Catch up quick: Dutta co-founded the political tech firm Higher Ground Labs and was mid-Atlantic finance director for Barack Obama's 2008 run.
- That campaign had a sophisticated digital tech operation to build networks of supporters and turn them out.
The bottom line: "We hope this is the beginning of some real organizing muscle," Dutta said.
