Climate Money

Venture capital for climate companies is drying up, and early stage companies can't exactly get a loan from the bank. So, who's actually financing the companies that are supposed to become tomorrow's bankable assets? Dimitry Gershenson, co-founder and CEO of Enduring Planet, joins us for a dispatch straight from the field. His firm lends against government grants and commercial contracts — starting at $100K, at the moment a contract is signed, not after an invoice is submitted. It's a gap that traditional lenders won't touch and most founders don't know exists. In this episode, we cover: How Enduring Planet evolved from revenue-based financing to grant advances to commercial contract lending — and the painful lessons along the wayWhy the firm has a zero default rate across 100 deals, even post-electionThe real math on why founders are "irrationally scared" of debt while happily giving away half their company in equityWhat Dimitry is seeing in his pipeline right now: the vibe, the mix of government vs. commercial lending, and where things are headedWhy the companies borrowing $100K today will be the ones borrowing $100M tomorrowThe fractional CFO business that grew out of founders showing up with broken booksDimitry has been building financial plumbing for the climate transition since his Peace Corps days in Honduras, through deploying catalytic capital at Meta, to founding Enduring Planet. This conversation is a close up look at what climate lending looks like when you strip away the narratives and look at the deals. Links:Enduring PlanetEnduring Planet case studiesClimate Money newsletter TAGS/KEYWORDS:climate finance, climate debt, climate tech, enduring planet, dimitry gershenson, grant advance, working capital, early stage lending, climate lending, contract financing, venture debt, climate startups, project finance, fractional CFO, climate VC, season 2

Climate Money is back! In the Season 2 premiere, host Susan Su breaks down BloombergNEF's bombshell report: global energy transition investment hit $2.3 trillion in 2025 — a new all-time record and the fourth consecutive record year.But the real story isn't the headline number. It's what's inside it.Over half of that $2.3T — a massive $1.2 trillion — was debt. That's a 15:1 ratio of debt to equity issuance, and it tells us two things: climate tech is maturing fast enough to attract risk-averse lenders at scale, and the original cleantech 1.0 equity investors were right.Susan unpacks what $2.3 trillion actually buys (77 Manhattan Projects, 13 Marshall Plans, 85% of global military spending), why debt is the signal every VC should be watching, and the one number that keeps her up at night — a dangerous mismatch between accelerating debt markets and a shrinking equity pipeline that could bottleneck the next generation of climate innovation.This season on Climate Money, we're tracking all things debt: where the capital is flowing, where the gaps are, and what founders and lenders on both sides of the table are seeing on the ground.Topics covered:BloombergNEF Energy Transition Investment Trends 2026The 15:1 debt-to-equity pipeline ratioWhy cleantech 1.0 was rightDeutsche Bank, TotalEnergies/Google, and SkyNRG's non-recourse milestoneThe equity bottleneck and compounding mismatchPrivate capital replacing government-labeled debtRead the full analysis on Substack: climatemoney.substack.com

Welcome to the Episode 9 of the Climate Money Podcast. In this episode, we look at: New research that shoes Direct Air Capture won’t be able to hit the magical $100/ton cost benchmark, and why this flies in the face of everything we’ve been told How a billion-dollar CO2 pipeline project is a secret force opposing EV adoption The blossoming frenemy-ship between Big Oil and Big Ag And how all this underscores the wicked, systems problem of climate change As always I welcome your feedback and reflections.

Welcome to the Episode 7 of the Climate Money Podcast. In this episode, we look at: Enel Energy’s $500M+ wind farm loss, and what it teaches us about energy history, tribal sovereignty, and knowing your audience Why culture, not money, is the tide that floats all boats — or sinks them, as we’ll see This is a particularly thorny issue so we’ve dedicated the entire episode to this topic. As always I welcome your feedback and reflections. Links and resources related to this week’s episode: Large Wind Turbine Facility in Oklahoma Ordered to be Dismantled https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/large-wind-turbine-facility-in-oklahoma-ordered-to-be-dismantled/ Enel faces huge bill to dismantle 84-turbine wind farm as US judge backs tribal nation https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/enel-faces-huge-bill-to-dismantle-84-turbine-wind-farm-as-us-judge-backs-tribal-nation/2-1-1577066 Federal Judge Sides With Osage Nation, Orders Removal Of 84 Wind Turbines https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/federal-judge-sides-with-osage-tribe (Warning: Robert Bryce’s work is controversial for its anti clean energy bias and funding from conservative think tanks, but this post presents details not available elsewhere.) Osage Nation back in court in latest bid to rid mineral estate of wind farm https://www.kosu.org/energy-environment/2023-09-20/osage-nation-back-in-court-in-latest-bid-to-rid-mineral-estate-of-wind-farm The Real History Behind ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-real-history-behind-killers-of-the-flower-moon-180983086/ OSAGE ARE RICHEST PEOPLE.; Greatest Per Capita Wealth in World Results From Oil Deal https://www.nytimes.com/1921/06/25/archives/osage-are-richest-people-greatest-per-capita-wealth-in-world.html OSAGE LANDS & MINERALS - 1872 to TODAY https://osagenation.s3.amazonaws.com/B/B.5.a.Lands&Minerals1872-TodayFactSheet.pdf There's a big climate cost to failing to recognize Indigenous sovereignty https://www.corporateknights.com/leadership/big-climate-cost-of-failing-to-recognize-indigenous-rights/ Norway to pay Sámi reindeer herders millions for violating their human rights https://grist.org/global-indigenous-affairs-desk/norway-to-pay-sami-reindeer-herders-millions-for-violating-their-human-rights/ Osage Wind Farm, US — Power Technology market data https://www.power-technology.com/marketdata/osage-wind-farm-us/

Welcome to the Episode 5 of the Climate Money Podcast. In this episode, we look at: New research that sheds light on climate deniers, the mental models that do — and don’t — fuel their skepticism, and what it has to do with climate money, especially as more climate companies and jobs are flooding otherwise climate unfriendly red states in the US Two important food labeling updates and what they mean for our transition to a cleaner, lower carbon, and lower cruelty food system. Links and graphics referenced in this episode: Global Warming's Six Americas — Yale Program on Climate Change Communication A representative survey experiment of motivated climate change denial — Nature Climate Change Fatwa on Cultivated Meat — Islamic Religious Council of Singapore

Welcome to the Episode 3 of the Climate Money Podcast. Follow the climate headlines — and the climate money — with me, Susan Su. In this episode, we look at: $200B in climate losses and the climate narrative problem. New data out from global reinsurer Munich RE shows that 2023 was the biggest year on record for climate-related losses. So why are we still talking about the “weather?” Tesla’s Hertz problem, Ford’s Lightning layoffs, and why China is exporting millions of combustion vehicles even as it becomes the biggest market in the world for EVs. We’re joined by special guest and mobility expert Olaf Sakkers, of RedBlue Capital, to learn more about what’s really behind all the bad news for EVs, and why there’s still reason to be bullish on an electric future

Welcome to the Episode 1 of the Climate Money Podcast. Follow the climate headlines — and the climate money — with me, Susan Su. One of the central ideas behind my work as a climate investor, and that of many others like me, is that solving climate change is the value creation opportunity of a lifetime. In this episode, we look at: - The UAE's new $30B climate fund and what it means for climate investing - A big development for carbon sequestration in... Louisiana? - India's solar and wind story, the good the bad and the tricky - First Solar's $700M revenue bump from tax credits courtesy of the IRA