By Marin Drouilly, December 11th, 2024
On November 22, 2024, Berkeley Haas proudly hosted the first Climate Solution Fund (CSF) Pitch Day, a signature event showcasing innovative solutions tackling critical climate challenges. Held in the Spieker Forum at Haas, the event drew students, alumni, mentors, and industry leaders to celebrate the next generation of climate innovators.
This year’s Pitch Day showcased teams from the newly launched CSF fund-as-curriculum course, where students serve as investment managers for a multi-asset class private investment fund. Through hands-on training, they learn to structure financing that mobilizes capital for transformative climate solutions. The course focuses on critical yet underexplored areas of finance, including public-private partnerships, risk-buffering capital structures, and growth equity for technologies reshaping production and logistics. The top team, one of five pitching, received $300,000 to invest in solar-energy focused Caelux.
The companies pitched to the Climate Solution Fund included:
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- Caelux: driving solar panel efficiency with cutting-edge nanotechnology (winner)
- B2U: reimagining battery reuse to optimize energy storage for renewable energy systems (finalist)
- Gradient: accelerating sustainable building practices with innovative insulation solutions (finalist)
- Hover: redefining sustainable transportation with lightweight hovercraft technology (finalist)
- Redaptive: revolutionizing building energy efficiency through data-driven retrofitting services (finalist)
- Austin Elements – innovative, low-carbon methods to recycle various types of lithium battery chemistries and other products
- Symbium – accelerate renewable energy projects by streamlining the permitting process using technology to navigate complex regulations
- Dispatch Goods – a plug-and-play circular logistics solution that helps you save money, elevate your brand image, and keep packaging out of the landfill
This year’s Pitch Day showcased five exceptional teams: B2U, Caelux, Gradient, Hover, and Redaptive. The winner, Caelux, showcased solutions that were not only innovative but also scalable, addressing critical needs in the healthcare accessibility, energy efficiency and clean energy sectors.
Being a part of the Climate Solutions Fund provided us with a unique opportunity to learn from an investor’s perspective and actively contribute to helping a real company secure investment. This hands-on, practical approach to learning deepened our understanding of the investment process. We gained invaluable insights into evaluating business models, assessing market potential, and crafting compelling pitches. The experience is a great example of Berkeley Haas’s commitment to developing innovative leaders who drive sustainable impact. – Kamakshi Sharma, member of the winning team and EWMBA ’25
The 2024 Climate Solution Fund (CSF) Pitch Day brought together a distinguished panel of industry judges to evaluate the innovative pitches. The judges included Niloufar Aazam, CFO of the Elea Foundation, David Suh, Managing Director of Samsung Ventures, Joakim Mahlberg, a leading investor at CalSTRS, and Rebekah Saul Butler, Managing Partner at Gratitude Railroad and Professional Faculty for the Sustainable and Impact Initiative. Collectively, they represented a breadth of expertise across climate finance, venture capital, and impact investing, offering participants invaluable feedback and insights.
In addition to the panel, the event featured a keynote fireside chat with Bill Green, Managing Partner at Climate Adaptive Infrastructure, further enriching the learning experience with his deep knowledge of structuring and mobilizing capital for large-scale climate solutions. Their combined guidance provided a dynamic platform for the students to hone their skills as future investors by giving them a front seat to the sourcing and due diligence offering, and to help them explore the real-world impact of all of their companies climate solutions.
