SOSV - Building the World's Most Active Climate Tech VC (feat. partner Benjamin Joffe)

Oct 11 2022 • 37 mins

Benjamin Joffe is a Partner at SOSV, a global deep tech fund with 1000 portfolio companies and $1.3B AUM. They focus on early-stage planetary and human health.

They invest the very first checks at pre-seed via the startup programs HAX (hard tech), IndieBio (biology), Orbit (frontier markets), and dlab (blockchain).

Benjamin started in an investing role in the HAX program in Shenzhen (invested in Opentrons, now a unicorn), and later chose to work in a non-investing role across the portfolio.

He's been an active angel investor, super speaker, and moderator in hundreds of events globally, and he's now the curator at SOSV Climate Tech Summit which happens virtually every year, generally in October.

Listen and Learn

Describe SOSV, ticket size, geography, and history (2:18)
Who backs SOSV today? (4:03)
How is SOSV structured today? (5:00)
Why did you decide to invest in climate? (6:35)
SOSV Climate Tech summit (8:07)
Do you see a better balance between the US, EU, and China in Climate Tech going forward? (10:30)
Have you seen more climate funds start outside of the US this year? (12:58)
What is the interaction between the EU and China in ClimateTech? (14:13)
Has the climate conversation matured in Asia? (16:06)
What is your role and how do you structure your investment scope? (18:40)
Is building a personal brand a must as a fund? (20:22)
Would you advise new funds to be more visible? (21:59)
Is building a personal brand the best way to access the best deals? (25:01)
What drives maximum return: software or hardware? (26:37)
What is the key to differentiation? (28:13)
Rapid fire round (30:08)
Where would you advise people to look for jobs within climate? (35:01)