Show Notes
Clean energy founders love to talk about technology, capital, and scale. But few are prepared for the fourth pillar of success: government.
Shomik Dutta, a co-founder and managing partner at Overture VC, learned that lesson firsthand after a career that spanned Obama’s White House, private equity, and venture capital. His takeaway: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
Shomik thinks the next generation of climate startups must treat policy as a core competency, not an afterthought. That means building real influence in Washington, developing a muscle for storytelling, and sometimes even instilling a little fear in politicians.
It’s a strategy Overture has baked into its investment model. The firm partners directly with Boundary Stone Partners, one of DC’s top government affairs shops, to help portfolio companies navigate regulation and shape outcomes.
In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks with Shomik about how industrial policy is reshaping venture capital, why crypto offers an unexpected lobbying lesson, and how founders can engage the government as a strategic partner— even in this moment of political backlash.
Credits:
Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey and Anne Bailey. Technical direction by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this show, subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter.
More from The Green Blueprint
This week, we’re presenting a drop-in episode of Critical Capital, a new partner podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios.
While living in Delhi, Sorin Grama gave a window air conditioner to an employee. He found out weeks later she wasn't using it because the electricity costs were too high. It was a stark reminder that access to global cooling isn't about upfront equipment costs. It’s about the high electricity costs needed to run air conditioners.
When David Fauvre and his co-founder entered the battery space in 2015, they started as brokers exporting American battery waste to recycling partners in Korea and Japan. But as the industry grew, shipping companies increasingly refused to transport the hazardous materials, making it clear that the U.S. desperately needed its own domestic processing capabilities.
“Good fires" naturally regenerate forests. But a rise in high-severity blazes in the American West are leaving behind barren moonscapes filled with dead trees. These scorched trees act as hazardous fuel for future fires, but clearing them to replant the landscape is astronomically expensive. Add to that a massive shortage in the conifer seed supply chain, and land managers simply don't have the resources to regenerate these forests on their own.
To build the physical infrastructure of the clean energy transition — from wind turbines and grid stabilization to massive new AI data centers — the world needs more copper between now and 2050 than humanity has produced in its entire history. But new copper mines take anywhere from 10 to 16 years to permit and build, meaning we’re not on track to meet our rapidly growing demand.