Hot or not: Your energy and climate valentines

Winners: Investors and bankers are saying "be mine" to startups pursuing geothermal power, and technologies addressing grid resilience and capacity constraints.

Losers: They're saying "it's not me, it's you" to hydrogen, food-tech, and anything that can't compete on cost.

Here's the full list of responses, which we lightly edited for length:

Andrew Beebe, Obvious Ventures

• 😍 "Geothermal. I can't quit you. You're just too hot, steamy and powerful."
• 😤 "Data centers in space. How can you seem so hot, but be so cold? Hopefully Elon will stay with you — you're made for each other."

Ted Brandt, Marathon Capital

• 😍 "Powered land deals. If sites have access to electrons by 2027, 'financeable' contracts will follow — with large development fees for happy clients."
• 😤 "Hydrogen and other low-carbon molecules. Deals have lost value and projects have not materialized at the scale envisioned."

Michael Bruce, Emerson Collective

• 😍 "The 'energy trilemma's comeback tour — rediscovering that society wants its energy reliable, affordable, and clean — in that order."
• 😤 "Pitches with 'saving the planet' as the go-to-market strategy. The planet's not signing your PO!"

Gina Domanig, Emerald Technology Ventures

• 😍 "Resilience as the new green: locally powered, digitally enabled."
• 😤 "The illusion of cheap and abundant electricity in Europe."

Elaine Hsieh, VoLo Earth Ventures

• 😍 "Where grid pressure is showing up early: congestion, demand shifts, dispatch limits. Constraints are the story."
• 😤 "Narratives that ignore system design or cost structure."

Laura Katzman, Buoyant Ventures

• 😍 "Efficient computing. As AI demand grows, efficiency is the fastest path to climate impact."
• 😤 "The idea that distributed energy resources are the silver bullet for managing load growth."

Arjun Murti, Veriten

• 😍"Meaningful renewables expansion in Africa, driving an increase in oil demand. It's never about one form of energy or the other — it's about what you can have access to, and the economic activity it enables."
• 😤 "The death of China's economy has been greatly exaggerated. They're on track to grow their power market in the next 5-10 years by the entire capacity of the U.S., using everything: oil, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, coal."

Brook Porter, G2 Venture Partners

• 😍 "Autonomy. Waymos are showing how much better AVs can make your life, and they're all going to be EVs."

• 😤 "Vertical farming. Electrons are going to GPUs before they go to Michelin Star restaurants."

Joshua Posamentier, Congruent Ventures

• 😍 "The resilience sector, from fire-tech that sees fire early, to analytics that help infrastructure investment avoid climate-induced risks."
  
  😤 "Anything that can't be cost competitive with the non-green alternative."

Sarah Sclarsic, Voyager Ventures

• 😍 "Energy storage. Battery costs continue to fall 20% per year, with performance improving and adoption accelerating."
• 😤 "Foodtech. Growth-capital is scarce; consumers are flooded with options but rarely wowed by taste, health or price; margins are low, and capital needs are high."

Pradeep Tagare, National Grid Partners

• 😍 "The intense focus on modernizing the electric grid and utilities' business models."
  
  😤 "Hydrogen startups. It was a nice thought."
• John Tough, Energize Capital
• 😍 "Complexity as a moat. Industrial systems generate proprietary data and require trusted, domain-driven partners — a powerful opportunity for climate software."
• 😤 "The retreat from EV investment by U.S. automakers. The global competition isn't blinking. When the EV cycle turns back up, hesitation will look like surrender."

Rick Zullo, Equal Ventures

• 😍 "Accelerated software adoption — finally! — within utilities and energy enterprises as they experience increased competition from non-traditional energy players."
• 😤 "The 'abundance" mindset. We are so far from limitless energy, meanwhile our grid is being choked by demand from AI. The business case for energy efficiency is the best it's been."