This episode kicks off with a clear provocation: climate tech is not dead. What has died are weak business models, shallow narratives, and capital that confused virtue with value.
Andreas is joined by Christian Hernandez, founding GP of 2150 and Jan Hofmann of the Viessmann Generations Group, for a wide-ranging conversation about what is actually happening in climate and industrial investing right now.
Together, they talk about:
why capital is consolidating around resilience, industry, and infrastructure;
why the strongest climate companies are being built quietly;
and why this moment may be one of the best entry points the ecosystem has seen in years.
This is a conversation about discipline, realism, and long-term ambition. Less hype. More execution.
What’s covered in this episode:
02:40 Capital flows, deal volume, and what investors are really backing now
04:00 Customers, infrastructure failures, and why resilience is the new framing
07:40 Industry replaces climate as the headline, but not the substance
11:30 Electrification demand versus grid reality
14:20 Energy supply, transmission bottlenecks, and why transformers matter
16:40 Capital discipline, hardware investing, and the changing VC playbook
20:30 Do generalist VCs really add value in hard climate tech?
25:50 The principle that will anchor climate investing going forward
27:40 2150’s journey from Fund I to Fund II in a volatile market
33:40 Urban Partners and why platform scale matters
37:20 Viessmann Generations Group’s evolution from industrial giant to ecosystem investor
47:40 What Europe must get right in climate tech over the next decade
🎧 Listen on Apple or Spotify, or queue it for later with chapters ready to go.
Show Notes
Climate Tech Isn’t Dead; It’s Growing Up
The episode opens by dismantling a popular narrative. Climate tech did not collapse. What collapsed were business models that relied on subsidies, loose capital, or moral urgency instead of fundamentals.
Christian frames climate tech simply as technology that is cheaper, faster, and better than what came before, while also reducing emissions. By that definition, adoption is accelerating, not slowing. Jan reinforces this by pointing out that the underlying need has only grown. Heat, electricity, mobility, and food security are not optional problems, and neither are the technologies that address them.
What has changed is the language. Sustainability has been replaced by resilience. Climate has been absorbed into industry, energy security, and infrastructure. The work continues, even if the labels have shifted.
From Climate to Industry Without Changing the Math
A recurring theme is how climate investing has been rebranded rather than abandoned. Where investors once led with purpose, they now lead with economics. CO₂ reduction is still monetized. Energy efficiency still drives margins. Electrification still lowers long-term costs.
What has disappeared is performative storytelling. As Christian notes, “green hushing” has replaced greenwashing. Companies deploy solutions without advertising them because the economics now speak for themselves.
The electrification of industry alone will require more energy than data centers, electric vehicles, and cooling combined. The grid is nowhere near ready. This is not a climate problem in isolation. It is an industrial constraint.
Energy Is the Bottleneck
The conversation turns technical quickly. Energy production matters, but transmission matters just as much. Thirty percent of electricity is lost in transmission today. Transformers are in year-long shortages. Grid upgrades lag demand by decades.
Christian and Jan both stress that the energy conversation has been fragmented. Generation, transmission, and usage are discussed separately, while the real challenge is connecting them into a functioning system. This is where infrastructure-heavy climate investing becomes unavoidable.
Capital Discipline and the Reality of Building Physical Systems
One of the most candid parts of the episode addresses capital formation. Climate and industrial tech require factories, equipment, inventory, and working capital. Equity alone cannot fund this.
Christian explains that for every euro of equity raised across the 2150’s portfolio, nearly seventy-five cents has already been raised in non-dilutive capital. Over time, he expects that ratio to flip dramatically in favor of debt.
This changes everything. Founders need CFOs earlier. VCs need to understand structured finance. Boards need to think about offtake agreements, bankability, and cost curves, not just growth metrics.
The era of casually funding hardware without a capital stack strategy is over.
Are Generalist VCs Really Equipped for This?
Jan answers this bluntly. Capital follows trends, but only expertise creates advantage. Many funds are moving into climate, defense, and resilience because the money has moved there. That does not mean they can add value.
This moment will separate tourists from operators. Funds without industrial experience will struggle. So will founders who underestimate manufacturing complexity. What remains is a smaller, more professional ecosystem.
The Anchoring Principle
When asked to summarize the lesson so far, Christian puts it simply. Do not invest because it is good. Invest because it is good business.
Jan adds that this filtering effect is healthy. Prices are lower. Quality is higher. Opportunists are gone. Conviction remains.
2150’s Journey Through the Downcycle
The conversation then shifts to 2150’s evolution. From launching Fund I in 2021 to closing Fund II in late 2024, the firm has grown to roughly half a billion euros under management across funds and SPVs.
Despite a difficult fundraising environment, Fund II closed at 210 million euros with a concentrated LP base made up of institutional investors and long-term family offices. Christian highlights something important. Some LPs now want to be publicly associated with climate investing again, not quietly but proudly.
For him, that signals renewed confidence in the sector’s fundamentals.
Urban Partners and Platform Advantage
2150 now sits within Urban Partners, a multi-strategy asset manager focused on cities, infrastructure, and resilience. The platform provides scale, access, and deployment environments that a standalone VC fund could never reach alone.
Christian describes how technologies can be tested inside real urban regeneration projects, embedded early, and then scaled globally. This is not about brand. It is about feedback loops between capital, operators, and innovation.
Wiesmann Group: A Climate Exit That Nobody Called Climate Tech
One of the most powerful moments comes when Jan explains Viessmann Generations Group’s own journey. After more than a century as an industrial company focused on heating and climate solutions, the family partnered with Carrier Global in a responsibility-driven transaction rather than a cash exit.
The result is a family office with deep industrial roots, long-term purpose, and the capital to invest across majority positions, minority partnerships, and ecosystem multipliers like 2150.
It is, as Christian puts it, one of the largest climate-positive exits in Europe that was never framed as climate tech.
What Europe Must Get Right Next
The episode closes looking forward. Regulation alone will not save Europe. Boldness, storytelling, and execution will.
Christian argues that Europe must celebrate ambition even when it fails. Jan emphasizes Europe’s structural strengths: engineering talent, democratic stability, and long-term capital.
The opportunity is there. The question is focused.
One-Line Takeaway
Climate tech did not fail. It matured. The next decade belongs to disciplined builders, industrial operators, and investors who understand that resilience, profitability, and planetary impact are no longer separate goals.
About 2150
2150 is a venture capital firm investing in technology companies that are redefining cities and the industries that sustain them.
Built on the belief that cities drive the majority of global prosperity and represent the greatest opportunity for sustainable progress, 2150 backs founders developing transformative solutions across developing transformative solutions across energy, industrial decarbonisation, advanced manufacturing, mobility solutions, and urban systems.
The firm partners with companies capable of delivering superior financial outcomes alongside measurable benefits for people and the planet. 2150 manages €500 million in assets under management and invests worldwide from its offices in London, Copenhagen and Berlin.
👉 Learn more at www.2150.vc
