What that Cap and Gown do?

Well well compadres - it only took Gagan and Rabii 3 months to find someone to do their work for them (that’s longer than I expected in their defence).

I jest - I’m Farrah Barber, a first-time-failed climate founder. I’m here for The Strawman’s FIRST (!) guest appearance.

For context, I went through Entrepreneur First last September. For those unfamiliar, EF are talent investors that invest in people pre-idea/pre-team - they bet on nerds to build big businesses and give them the resources to do so.

My start-up was a deep biotech company making algae cheaper for animal feed, and potentially human food / high-value products / feedstocks (in the very long term).

And it’s with these reflections that I’m here to spice up Strawman. More importantly - how non-first-time-founder-friendly the climate space can be.

Firstly - there are amazing climate communities out there. Voyagers, Marble, Start-up Basecamp, to name a few. Within these communities, there are thousands of value-driven, thoughtful people that see solving the climate crisis as a matter of critical importance. So why is it that I was told, verbatim, that ‘there’s a non-negligible portion of the climate community that will not take [you] seriously because you don’t have a PhD’?

Strawman interlude - we ain’t got no PhDs either, but we still bring the heat. Investors always talk about the benefits of a fresh perspective; sometimes they don’t practise what they preach though…

No PhD, no big problem:

There’s little solid data that exists on how far climate venture funding in Europe is allocated to founders with PhDs but this Sifted article is a decent start. In 2020, 93% of overall VC-funded founders had studied at university - with more than 1/5th holding a PhD. When considering that only 1% of adults held a PhD in 2021 across the thirty-eight OECD countries, we start to see what a fancy cap and gown can do.

Now - it’s true. After 3-5 years of someone studying a subject, you’d hope that they’d make for better investments, right? Indeed for some, it is true - but that’s not always the case. When speaking with a leading VC, I was told that ‘PhDs can be the worst people for us to invest in - the longer you’ve been in theory, the less you do in practice’.

PhDs are by nature deep dives - you dig into a subject, you learn its cracks and crevices, you swim in its theory, and you’re usually relatively well-resourced whilst doing so. Start-ups are dirty, under-resourced, scrappy hubs of chaos with no structure. The dichotomy between these does lead to questions about theoretical and practical excellence in academia vs start-ups.

Strawman interlude - 3-5 years just to get a degree?! Based on what we’ve seen it seems like we might not have enough time to both get PhDs and save the planet…

Sex:

Sentiment toward ‘women in…’ narratives differs within the female founders I know, and whilst useful for nuance, in climate funding there are bigger fish to fry. The statistics speak for themselves - in Q1 2023, female founders received just 6.9% of climate venture dollars- which is down from the already quite sad 8.9% of 2022.

Now, as we’ve seen above, if you have a PhD, you’re more likely to receive overall venture funding. I’ve been scouring ‘the best PhDs to study for climate / climate start-ups / climate venture…’ - the answers were clear: engineering, life sciences, environmental sciences, computational sciences…

Combine that with the fact that:

1. Women are already far less likely to seek or receive venture funding,

2. >20% of the overall people with venture funding had a PhD, even though ~1% of total people get them, and

3. Highly technical, very specific PhDs carry more weight than others as potential climate talent

We see that there’s something fishy afoot. You seem to need to be a man that has studied one of 10 subjects to really increase your odds in climate/venture.

Pew released the below that outlines where women are underrepresented in STEM - and it’s in the very subjects that wet the lips of climate-keen investors. Naturally, this is a systemic issue, but again, as above, means we may want to reflect on our definitions of suitability and potential for successful climate talent.

Strawman interlude - The Strawman doesn’t know so much about this topic, I’m a fictional straw at the end of the day. That said, even we know something ain’t right here - as Farah mentioned this is a systemic issue but we need all stakeholders to take action…

What now?

This article hasn’t touched on income, race, ethnicity, nth time founding, etc. We’ve also talked a lot about problems rather than solutions and made some spurious connections between overall VC funding, climate funding, and geographic relevance… wait, is this article of any use at all?

I jest. The purpose of this article was to begin to breakdown one note, amongst many, of feedback I received as a first-time-climate founder, but this piece could be a book. There are reasons those with PhDs can outperform the rest of us, and the blame for the capital concentration isn’t completely on VCs.

All I’d ask is that there’s more generosity in approach, more openness to those trying to break into a space, and that we let people’s work talk for them, rather than their credentials.

After all, shouldn’t we all be oriented toward making this hot mess a little cooler?

*I have only got experience of founding in climate in the UK, this is likely to differ internationally

That’s all for today folks - see ya tomorrow

Farrah (and The Strawman)