In this episode, we talk to Tristan Pollock and Mehrad Yaghmai. They are the are the founding partner and partner at Cool Climate Collective. Which brings together investors and operators at the intersection of climate and technology. 

Mehrad is an instructor in Terra's Climate Change for VCs program as well as a partner at Climate Foundry and has been involved in various programming at MENA-based accelerators, while also being a mentor to various Techstars programs. He’s also built deep relationships in the academic and scientific communities, including at Yale, Berkeley, and other tech transfer offices.  

Tristan has spent the last decade building, selling, and investing in startups and is bent on spending the next decade dedicated to fixing our climate problem. He's been a VC at 500 Startups where he directed $30M in funding, an EIR at Google for Startups, listed at Forbes 30 Under 30, a Terra ClimateTech VC Fellow, and a mentor at hundreds of accelerator programs, including Techstars, Katapult Climate, and Norrsken Impact. He’s also built and sold 2 startups at the intersection of impact and technology. 

During this episode we talk about their reason for wanting to help climate focus start-ups. We also look at some of the key things they look out for when finding the next start-up to join the collective? They also provide some great tips for all your crazy bird entrepreneurs that would like to launch their one start ups.  

Links from the episode

Episode 55 with The Concept

Akua - Kelp Burgers

Wasted - Tesla for Toilets

Riide - Ebikes

Other projects

Below are some of the names that are used to hide palm oil in our ingredients.

• PKO – Palm Kernel Oil 
• PKO fractionations: Palm Kernel Stearin (PKs); Palm Kernel Olein (PKOo) 
• PHPKO – Partially hydrogenated Palm Oil 
• FP(K)O – Fractionated Palm Oil 
• OPKO – Organic Palm Kernel Oil 
• Palmitate – Vitamin A or Asorbyl Palmitate (NOTE: Vitamin A Palmitate is a very common ingredient in breakfast cereals and we have confirmed 100% of the samples we’ve investigated to be derived from palm oil) 
• Palmate 
• Sodium Laureth Sulphate (Can also be from coconut) 
• Sodium Lauryl Sulphates (can also be from ricinus oil) 
• Sodium dodecyl Sulphate (SDS or NaDS) 
• Elaeis Guineensis 
• Glyceryl Stearate 
• Stearic Acid 
• Chemicals which contain palm oil 
• Steareth -2 
• Steareth -20 
• Sodium Lauryl Sulphate 
• Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (coconut and/or palm) 
• Hydrated palm glycerides 
• Sodium isostearoyl lactylaye (derived from vegetable stearic acid) 
• Cetyl palmitate and octyl palmitate (names with palmitate at the end are usually derived from palm oil, but as in the case of Vitamin A Palmitate, very rarely a company will use a different vegetable oil) 

Where can people find Cool Climate Collective?

LinkedIn - Cool Climate Collective

LinkedIn - Mehrad Yaghmai

LinkedIn - Tristan Pollock

Twitter - Mehrad Yaghmai

Twitter - Tristan Pollock

Website

KEY TAKE AWAY

“The small things we don’t think about on a day to day can have a big impact.”