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Elbow Beach is a private investment company backing visionary entrepreneurs developing technologies that accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. With a strong focus on commercial viability and scalable impact, their portfolio spans sectors from green computing and automation to low-carbon materials and electrification.
We sat down with JP, CEO & Managing Partner at Elbow Beach and a seasoned commercial leader with a background in tech and telecoms, to explore what drives their investment approach. In this conversation, JP shares insights into the firm’s customer-centric investment thesis, the evolving cleantech landscape, and what founders should focus on when seeking funding.
I spent nearly twenty years working in senior commercial roles within the technology and telecoms sector. I always knew that at the centre of my role was to increase shareholder value and the best way to do this was to create customer value which the company could take a fair share of, growing profits and in the simplest terms growing shareholder value. Then in 2018, the events of COP26 in Glasgow convinced me that the clean tech sector was missing this approach and that there was an opportunity to build a fund within the sector that prioritised customer value.
"We aim to target the intersection of improving customer outcomes and climate impact. We want to deliver significant customer benefits, including lower cost, more efficient processes and improved performance with low carbon operations. "
There’s a growing understanding that clean tech isn’t just about decarbonisation. Technology can also lower costs and increase efficiency meaning that capital will start coming in from other markets, not just green tech. We are at a crossroads in how we think and talk about ‘cleantech’ and I’m hopeful that a shift towards a focus on the economic benefits (efficiency gains, lower costs) will help drive activity across the sector and we’ll start to see more industries adopting technology that makes their processes more efficient and cost effective as well as greener.
Investors must drive improved acumen in the sector across all stakeholders, another “cleantech bubble” based solely on mission-led investors is not helpful for long term growth. Investments must be framed as exciting and attractive opportunities to make returns and scale better and greener customer solutions. The customer value of solutions should be central to any investment decisions and investors should keep this at the forefront of their minds if they want to drive true scale up within the sector.
"We have recently announced the launch of our second Climate Impact Fund, and this fund’s overall objective is to back technologies that will do exactly that and make a meaningful impact by solving big problems. Target sectors include automation and AI, green computing, electrification, and low-carbon materials. "
Whilst funding into climate technologies has not been the greatest faller across VC in the last couple of years, funding is still a significant challenge. However, the best companies that create customer value in big markets will still be successful.
"Government policy should focus on removing barriers to demand for new technologies and where possible stimulate it. This would solve two key UK government objectives of decarbonising the economy and delivering productivity gains."
Green computing will be transformational - I define this as increasing computing power and lowering the inputs, such as power, water and rare earth minerals. Demand growth within computing is unprecedented and advancing electrification and automation will only increase this demand so green computing is essential for sustained growth across all kinds of sectors.
Keep focussed on how your technology will provide customer value. Solutions that can unlock commercial benefits are those that will succeed and ultimately drive widescale adoption and impact.
Thanks JP, looking forward to working closely with you going forwards!
