Djoann Fal, the founder of Atlas Capital, believes that Southeast Asia is a region with enormous potential for innovation and implementation in ClimateTech.
In this episode, our host Tarmo Virki speaks with Fal, a passionate advocate for climate tech, about the challenges and opportunities in Southeast Asia, we hear about some of the companies that his investment firm Atlas Capital is backing, and how Fal got into climate investments after his exit from an e-commerce technology firm.
"I almost drowned doing spearfishing, because of a plastic bag, and that plastic bag, I think was from e-commerce delivery. So it was kind of, you know, God sent me a sign that you got your small exit, now you got a little bit of money, you're going to just spend it on stupid stuff, or you're going to actually do something with your time and with that money to do a bit more meaningful," Fal said in the episode.
"That was the trigger for me to decide to look and spend the next 10 years in this space. So so far, it's been two years, eight years to go. That's my commitment. But let's see, I think there's a lot that's going to happen in the next few years," Fal said.
We also talk about how the importance of building a strong ecosystem for climate tech in Southeast Asia, and we discuss how investors, governments, and businesses can all play a role in making this happen.
The region has already started to be hit by climate change and rising sea levels.
"How do we continue living? How do we protect health? How do we protect arbitrations? How do we protect cities too, but also how do we protect nature? Our agricultural assets, food production, etc. It is a lot of money to be lost. But also, I believe, and I think with Atlas Capital, and my partners, we all believe together, that there's a lot of money to be made, helping all this infrastructure to adapt to climate change, as well."
So if you're interested in learning more about climate tech opportunities, or if you're looking for inspiration to start your own climate tech venture, then be sure to listen to this episode.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The challenges and opportunities of climate tech in Southeast Asia
- Why the local climate tech scene is still in its infancy
- The quick opportunity in technology transfer from Europe, U.S.
- The companies that Atlas Capital is backing
- The importance of building a strong ecosystem for climate tech in the region
If you're interested in learning more about climate tech, or if you're looking for inspiration to start your own climate tech venture, then be sure to listen to this episode.
And if you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends.
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Tarmo Virki 0:00
Welcome to Naturebacked podcast where we speak with investors and entrepreneurs about the green future. Today I'm meeting in Bangkok Djoann Fal from Atlas Capital. John, tell a little bit about background story of Atlas Capital. How did you guys set up the venture?
Djoann Fal 0:18
Sure. So I've started Atlas capital two years ago, based in Southeast Asia for the past 10 years, after exiting my first baby startup, I had a chance to really think, Okay, what's what's next? What do I really care about, and through the collisions of several people that I've met, that were very meaningful interactions, connections, discussions, we got to realise that was the right time, or finance, to collide with our tech, and to look at hard problems like climate change and adaptation. So it's, it's how Atlas, to emerge out of the ground during that COVID, period. And yeah, we've been doing a very small first fund, which was basically a bunch of SPVs together, investing in US companies. Initially, it was just my money, and then a few of my friends joined in. And now we're looking to do a little bit larger fun, to be able to do more deals. But in the meantime, we're trying to build an ecosystem of Climate Technology in Southeast Asia. Because it's a it's very new category for this region. But it's also one of the region where it can be the most meaningful, right? biodiversity in the region. And it's also one of the region that will be the most impacted by climate change. It's a very relevant narrative here.
Tarmo Virki 1:56
And also, adaptation is probably something this region can teach to the other parts of the world. Temperatures outside are such that for a Nordic person like me, it's relatively challenging, though, to live with a client in a climate like this. Yeah,
Djoann Fal 2:12
I mean, you know, this ad con is running all the time here. So this is a form of adaptation. But when we think about adaptation, there's a lot more that the region isn't prepared, right. An example is last month, we had some of the largest recorded weather events in the history, we had a heatwave with nearly 52 degrees Celsius of pure ceived. It's 52. Right, we are in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Right. And so that was like in May, right. So the population had to first realise that it's going to happen maybe more frequently, on the years to come, but also one of the ways to adapt to this, right. So of course there is drought, right? Of course, there is climate, you know, cons. What else right, and so so, so it's one of the regions that is going to be facing a lot more weather events, it's forecasted, it's admitted. Now, what do we do for that? How do we continue living? How do we protect health? How do we protect arbitrations? How do we protect cities to but also how do we protect the nature, right? Our agricultural assets, food productions, etc. It is a lot of money to be lost. But also, I believe, and I think with Atlas capital, and my partners, we all believe together, that there's a lot of money to be made, helping all these infrastructure to adapt to climate change, as well.
Tarmo Virki 3:48
Exactly. When the world is changing. There is a big opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors also. Absolutely. The other part is, of course, the rising sea levels in most of Bangkok will be underwater sooner than people actually realise. Probably the spot where we're sitting to kind of building dams, Poland has been doing through centuries probably is probably one of the solutions but there must be other solutions to
Djoann Fal 4:15
Holland is is a very inspiring country or ties, but also for also for Indonesians and Vietnamese In fact, we hear that Bangkok will be underwater but or Shimon city in Jakarta are going to be an award in the same time are probably faster as well. So it's very interesting if you google this, you can see the graphs and the actual maps. And so they are very much in the same situation. In fact, a Jakarta is being moved to capital of Indonesia is being moved 100 kilometres away to create a new capital from scratch right now, to be able to adapt to these climate change effects of you know theorising, so So it's not just Bangkok, it's three of the mega cities in the region. And of course, you can actually already see this. So it's not like, Sea is coming, you know, and like, like a water wall type of moving. It's more episodes, right? So, twice, 334 times a year, you can see this tree is flooded. Right? It's just happening for one day to three days, right? And then the water get back. And then there's another rod, but it's just, it's just episodes, right? What is the actual sea rise that we are observing here is the frequency of these episodes increasing. And that's why it's damaging. While it's not. If the water was here all the time, we just build on top of it. Right now we've been floating houses, right? It's fine. The issue is when it's not. So it's kind of like to really think that you can just build a house here. And then the water comes. So So and it's a bit disturbing, because you're you're not sure if you should stay or you should leave, right? That's like that boiling frog type of situation where you don't really realise the heat is is heating up. Right? But it is right and so that's that's the boiling frog situation. Right? So here, you have an episode of sea rise coming in for one or two days if Oh, it's fine. Yeah, you know, you still buy a new house or you still build a new condo. And that's what we're seeing in in Shimon city, Jakarta in Bangkok, right, even though the frequency of sea rising and floods episodes is going to increase, we still see a lot of buildings. Right? You can you were here the past few days, right? It's how many buildings can you see? Right? And so I think the really interesting opportunity here is how do we make those buildings flood profs, right? How do we make the actual structure to be resilient to floods to sea rise? So even if there's, you know, more frequencies of those weather events and floods, how can those buildings still exist? Right. So this this, this is a lot of concepts that will emerge? I'm pretty sure at some point, we'll see bridges between buildings, you know, maybe what we see today,
Tarmo Virki 7:23
we saw in one of the one of the sky rises a bridge between
Djoann Fal 7:26
Yes, by example, but also simply the BTS. Right? We have very strong infrastructure. Thanks, you know, to the BTS company, which is group, they have built very strong infrastructure. And that doesn't exist in our Chi Minh City, for example, right? So you have that high rise infrastructure where people can use walkway everywhere, right. So that's maybe how these fingers live or while having those those walkway that actually flood proof. Right. When it's flooding. Everybody takes the bit yes, no more car. Even better for the pollution, no traffic jam. That's some form of adaptation that we can see in those countries. And it's very interesting to observe
Tarmo Virki 8:10
this. I mean, is it the only concept or do you see already startups emerging to work on the solutions?
Djoann Fal 8:18
Unfortunately, not as much. I think I think the hype, you know, we're still talking about crypto here, talking about e commerce and fintech. Right? Because, you know, we don't know if there is money in in climate, right? It's not like in the US or in Europe, where it's very obvious, very clear, that is a lot of dry powder. A lot of venture capitals trying money into climate tech. Here is none. Right? We were actually we were the first one to talk about this stuff two years ago. So nowadays, a few more players that are you know, coming in and starting to, you know, step by steps. Oh, yeah, maybe we do take and crypto but also sustainability. And we start to see conglomerates, jumping in and say a start to say, Oh, we actually going to invest in Southeast Asia. But all those conglomerates have been heavily investing in us in Europe for the past 10 years already. And so for us, what we see is, is going to take time for this actually, on the market to build up in Southeast Asia, right? It's going to take a few years, probably five, five plus years to be something with enough deals. But in the meantime, there's two opportunities. Number one is to invest in US or European companies and help them to expand here because we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Some solutions that are highly, you know, scalable, engineered, checked in scientifically checked, are ready to be deployed here. That's done impact you can do and we really believe in that transfer. And the second thing is venture building. Right? So So working with conglomerates, etc, to venture build solutions, that could be really commercialised very quickly here. So I think these are the immediate opportunity for this market, waiting for a good batch of founders locally, to start to realise, this is the next big thing. So this is kind of where we've been playing as well.
Tarmo Virki 10:33
Exactly. The, I think that technology transfer is a really interesting thing. And you guys have been investing in a few US companies so far, already taking them here, or taking the technologies here, or
Djoann Fal 10:46
while we're very small, firm, you know, it's like two guys and a bunch of analysts with a, you know, not much resources. But I think the network we have is incredible, I think between our advisors, and between the people that I've had the chance to talk with, during my, my research for my book, we have a lot of, of connections. And yes, indeed, we, we see a lot of interesting innovations. And since I've been here in this market for the past 10 years, I got the chance to work with some conglomerates got a chance to work with, to have some some big families to support my businesses. And so now, it's all about reconnecting the dots, but not on E commerce anymore on this climate tech adaptation journey.
Tarmo Virki 11:40
Because I think this transfer thing has a huge potential, because this is the region, which is often seen as the most or the first hit by the climate change. And we have a lot of companies, for example, in northern Europe, building climate solutions, which, you know, in the countries, which actually benefit from climate change. However, we are pleased to say that, but there are a few few few Nordic countries who actually will be benefiting from climate change when the rest of the world they say, you know, going down,
yeah, yeah, so Exactly. So this is a paradox we observe, right? It is like, clean air, clean water, you know, all these floating farms, all this stuff is invented in markets that don't really need it, like the actually marginal efficiency increase that these products will bring to these markets in Europe is insignificant. Right. And, and, but the technology behind it is incredible, right? This is years and years of, of government money to develop those patterns, right to create those engineers or scientists, right? That Southeast Asia will just never have, right? It's probably 30 years, 50 years of government investments, subsidies, etc, to create those scientists to be able to come up with this stuff, right. But actually, the actual market might not be in Europe, might be in emerging market, maybe specificly. And very often, in Southeast Asia. And that's, that's what we see. That's what we believe in. So one of our advisor and partner is actually based in in Vancouver, Cuca. And she's she's been, she has been looking at all these innovations, you know, clean air, clean water in Canada, we have the cleanest air, the cleanest water, right? But she's tight. And as she connects to that, why is this thing not in my hometown, in my home country where the pollution is so bad, where the water is so bad, right? So that's where all these things came in. And we thought, These days an actual, very unique mandate here, that can have a lot of impact. And so that's, that's why we decided to team up together. And we think what we do makes a lot of sense. Now, you know, we're very young were emerging fund managers, you know, we don't have multi billion dollar balance sheet behind us
next next month, next month.
Djoann Fal 14:14
But we know some companies who does and that's that's why we're trying to connect with them and, and work together to achieve that goal. Now,
Tarmo Virki 14:21
I think the call here to all the climate tech founders listening is to check out the Southeast Asian markets because they could be really good market for your for your solutions. Absolutely. Even though maybe the average GDP per person is somewhat lower than in Northern Europe. But it may make sense for your solutions that would be so much more demand here. Absolutely. And
Djoann Fal 14:46
in fact, we've got a good group of investors who and conglomerates who believe the same and eager to welcome this solution. So last month, we created a coalition with more than 20 of these conglomerates. And all these compromised their venture investment arms. In this family offices, they also invest. So they're really eager to bring those innovations here. So together with those 20 conglomerates, they committed 1.2 Billion US dollar, right across all their different corporate venture capital funds. So there's real money here that is ready to be invested in solutions if they are relevant for them. So with that firepower, I think, showcasing that this exists, I think this should be really attracting a lot of companies. And so truly is platform which we have called the Southeast Asian climatic Coalition. We're aiming to facilitate that. In fact, we're aiming to bring more and more of these delegations to make that connection. We are going to announce very soon, a big campaign to really showcase those innovations who successfully enter this market, thanks to the coalition. And we are opening a Slack group where all the startups can join, apply, and instantly connect to those 20 conglomerates. Plus, there's nearly another 100 investors in that group. So that's invitation only, because we all we really want to quality funded company with TLR, maybe after 33262 That actually commercializable to be able to join, but this is something we kicked out. So check out the Southeast Asia climatic coalition. Good.
Tarmo Virki 16:40
We will add the links to the show notes for listeners to check out. Companies in the climate tech scene, what kind of maybe subcategories or as you said, this pond fund itself is relatively small these days. So probably the relatively early stage companies should turn to Atlas capital. Right.
Djoann Fal 17:04
So they do this is what the markets likes, is the hypes and is what what we like. Right? So So of course, what what's the hype is about today? I'm not gonna get into generative AI. Yes, please don't, we're gonna get simply into what we look at, you know, climate tech here. I think there's a lot of hype about Eevee mobility, right? Southeast Asia have the biggest amount of motorbikes in the world, right. You will go to your Chi Minh City, when they are hoping you will be stunned to see how many motorbikes there is. It's insane, right. So what about this transition to you know, no carbon, right. So, Evey electric vehicles, it's, it's a big one, but not only, I think there's a lot of discussions around hydrogen. Because evey actually requires a lot of Nicalis lithium, cobalt, other very expensive, we're earth material and, and, and the life of these batteries is very short. So what do you do with this? Right? So it's not something that people realise yet. A lot of investments ease into Evie right now. But for Atlas capital, we look at that we see, we see that this is a short fix, right? So longer takes forces hydrogen, but also recycling and repurposing of these batteries. We really believe in that. So we in fact, we've made a one of our first investments, small investment into a company that is doing Evie batteries recycling. And so this, this company is based in San Francisco, but they're eager to tap into the Southeast Asian market. And so right now we're working to bring this company by walking with a few conglomerates that could be funding their first factory here in Southeast Asia together. So that's one of the example of a sector that we're interested in. It's what we call inevitable, right? I think the largest FDI right now in Southeast Asia is Evie. It's insane. Right? So So you really got to see probably 15 to 20% of the cars next 10 years in Southeast Asia to be EVs. Right, so what do you do with those batteries and repurpose them, plug them into residential commercial buildings, to home energy storage like that with solar panel? You're going to incredible grid efficiency improvement here, right. Another aspect that I think is capital for Southeast Asia, and we see a lot of hype, but also a lot of investors and Congress, Emirates that are really deploying capital into that space is agriculture. So not like India, which had the Industrial Revolution Southeast Asia just didn't have it. Right. So us In in you eating rice probably from from from Indonesia or Thailand. And it's really done like 50 years ago, 100 years ago, right. So there is that double leapfrog opportunity in Southeast Asia to do not only that zero agriculture, but also just industrialise it. So you go from like manual agriculture to industrial and zero together. And so there's a lot of conglomerates, very powerful fortune 500 companies in the region, that are you know, agri tech conglomerates. And they're heavily looking at this. So this is something we really believe in. And partially because it's so connected with the pollution in our cities. In fact, probably 60% of the PM 2.5, the actual pollutions that we can observe in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Singapore included, is that haze from the burning of that 100 years old agriculture tradition of burning the crops? Right. So by modernising the agriculture, you can actually reduce the burns, and then reduce the pollution. And this pollution is not co2 Climate Change directly. But it's, it's really near fast factor that is really affecting these cities. And that is having an impact on the migrations of those people. So so so it's something very important as well. And it's contributing to decarbonizing those industries, if we can make it right. Right. So I think those two are very, very important for the region. And, and it's something that we have a lot of partners in the coalition who are looking in. And lastly, of course, you know, everything about carbon capture, etc, is very high. But to be honest, for Southeast Asia, we don't see that really coming, even though governments, you know, are going to invest into carbon capture solutions, you know, your direct air capture, etc, are very expensive. And if the energy produced to run those machines is gas or cold, doesn't make any sense, right, as as of today, in Southeast Asia, 70% to 80%, for some countries of the actual energy produced is from coal or gas. So direct air capture doesn't make any sense, right? It's only makes sense if you have hydro power, or geothermal power, which we don't have here on nuclear power, which we could have. But somehow it's not. It's not it's not a fun, famous thing here, or now. So So I don't I don't bet heavily on this at all. Now, one of the things that I'm quite bullish on and with Atlas, we're looking at venture build, one companies in that space is blue carbon. So carbon capture using the ocean, which Southeast Asia have a lot of space for this, right. So so we're looking at seaweed for carbon capture, which actually absorbed 35 times more carbon and a tree. Right. So so it's an interesting space for such a Marine Region, which is Southeast Asia with so many islands, so many costs or opportunities to leverage on
Tarmo Virki 23:29
Absolutely. The Evie is of course, the space which in Europe and North America is somewhat declining, because so much of venture money was thrown at it. And when the basically their app was closed last year, then there was a lot of companies in trouble these days, because there's just too many especially them emobility kind of their Micromobility level companies. Yeah, I don't see Bangkok going that way. There is just no roads for scooters. Observing goes outside.
Djoann Fal 24:04
There is I think, I think the bigger tsunami that Bangkok is going to be a victim as well as Indonesia and Vietnam, or Chi Minh City is is the Chinese Evie tsunami. Right. So China have been planning for this for more than 10 years right? building all these infrastructure, One Belt One Road initiative, Eastern corridor to actually distributes all these cars, and they are really winning this right. So in Southeast Asia, I would I would really see 70% of the EVS next 10 years to be Chinese. And because you know China have over produced already those EVs you can start to see symmetries of EVs in China right now, they really need to quickly sell those two guys here. And so that's that's, that's really where the Evie market is going to be. So you can see very large deals. You know, foreign direct direct investments are mainly driven by those. So for example, BYD the Chinese Tesla invited, invaded Thailand last year with the joint venture with a very large conglomerate here, which we're working with. And, you know, this is only going to be like two or three players, we dominating that market, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. And so BYD will be one of them. Sure. So, so that's, that's where we see the Evie market. And for us, we just can't play with that, right? It's just too big, right? We're talking about, you know, 10 Billion US dollar type of deals. And, and there's no infrastructure here is just going to be sales, right? What we see is interesting for play, hence, as a result is the infrastructure of that Evie. Market. Right? So charging stations, recycling of the batteries, maintenance of the cars, right. So these are three things you can do. So that's the only space that is less for investors like us. But looking at developments, a charging station, it's a lot of infrastructure. So a lot of oil and gas companies in the region in Singapore, Indonesia, are jumping on this to build that infrastructure. And I'm sure there is a lot of money that will be made on that.
Tarmo Virki 26:42
Absolutely. The, in this product startups, I mean, building infrastructure is typically not the startup thing to do, you know, not too much of innovation to putting up a station to charge something, of course, there's also venture money going in and, you know, kind of startups, there's probably more more startup, the thing is probably the work on the technologies for recycling, which is also probably a, you know, massive opportunity, you said you have made an investment in that field, right?
Djoann Fal 27:12
Yeah, so so posh robotics is the name of the company, you can check them on on our website. And, and this is a good example of a truly global efforts resumed into one team, the founder is Singaporean from Southeast Asia. But he went to Stanford to do his PhD in robotics, and raised money in San Francisco, and now is looking to build back infrastructure and access to this market in Southeast Asia. Right. So you truly see that, that transaction, right that two way. And I think this is really what we want to see more, right? We want to see very smart, resilient founders, tapping into where the resources are, to then impact positively the actual region. Right. So So that's, that's something we really believe in. And again, it's just a matter of how much impact you can make with your limited lifetime. Right? So So I think these guys really get it. And so that's why we're really eager to continue helping them to connect with potential partners, clients and investors here in this region.
Tarmo Virki 28:22
Looking forward, the mean us speaking a little bit about the future already plans have different launches. But for Atlas capital, what's what are the kind of next big milestones you're writing in your, your pitch deck?
Djoann Fal 28:35
So there is a few, I think, firstly, the coalition. We started that a month ago, we have 400 members now. But we really want to have quality conglomerates that are really to be, you know, facilitating and supporting the emergence of that climatic ecosystem in the region to join us. So our job is to find bankable innovations in Europe or in the US. And that's one of my partner, and she's based there. And my job here is to connect with more conglomerates here to get them to join the coalition. And so that's, that's something that we want to scale. We want to have 1000 members, and we want to keep this 70% of family offices and conglomerate investors in that group. So 30% of founders are really benefiting from these connections, you know, we boom, get them to talk to $1.5 billion, you know, within a day, if they come here, this is like, this is a great opportunity. Absolutely. So we're gonna continue facilitating events with that coalition. And we're looking to get that coalition to be sustainable by itself by you know, having a few revenue streams, so we don't have to worry we have a full time team taking care of that coalition. So that's for next six month. Now, with Atlassian have found one, we're looking to continue growing at a small fund. So we can do quick seed stage precede seed deals, you know, 100k each for each deals, so we're looking to extend that to another or to another 1 million US. So we can do another 10 deals. And this is like yesterday, right? So so we're doing that right now. And it's because it's just too bad to see so many of these opportunities and not be able to, you know, even catch some of them, right? And the large launcher game for us. And that's really what we're, what we're doing that's a real answer of your question, is to walk with five key conglomerates in the region, to help them to source those innovations in the US and Europe. And so they can actually join us as an LP for our larger fun, right. So that's what we're working on, looking to structure a larger fund on $25 million to be able to do 40 investments 70% In the US, Europe and other 30 person here in Southeast Asia. And so we're working with three conglomerates at the moment, who are looking for a few more, and hopefully, these will be joining us on the journey to structuring that new fund. Probably next year, we don't know when when, of course, when the time is right. But But yeah, this is this is this is this is really what we're aiming
Tarmo Virki 31:35
and maybe the the last thing or maybe where we should have started or should have started, you know, what makes you passionate about the sector? What makes you you know, jump up in the morning from the bed and go and, you know, go and change the world?
Djoann Fal 31:50
Well, I guess I've been brainwashed by my parents, my mom was in, you know, like all these hippie, Greenpeace WWF stuff. And she's, she's been annoying me with that stuff for a very long time. I used to hide it and be like, Mom Stop, like, oh, you know, and every, every, every weekend, I call her she's still sitting or you know, we need to save the planet, we're gonna die. This is a very negative, you know, narrative that she's got, since I'm young, and I hated it. So what drives me really, is to actually have a positive narrative. I think I think there's too much negativity about climate change. And of course, we should worry. But let's look at the positive. Let's look at those people who actually moving the needle. Let's look at the people who are actually there to take their money. And instead of doing real estate's or instead of doing ETFs, or you know, investing in Apple or Microsoft, they get the balls to invest in that solutions that potentially gonna save us all. Right, let's, let's upload those people. Right, let's, let's, let's make more videos, let's, let's talk more, but let's do more podcasts about these people, these investors and these founders, who actually deciding to leave ecommerce to work on climate tech. That's what I care about. And that's what excites me, right. And I'm just one of the 1 million people who next 20 years will do that. Right? I had the chance to do it a bit early. Because, you know, I've spent 10 years running, I mean, eight years running the first company as a CEO, and I had an early exit. But it's so many other people who could do that, right. So many people who have the position, they're making enough money to actually invest in that space, right, and really shape design the future they will leave for their kids, right? There's a lot of people who maybe don't have the money, but there are founders instead of starting another, you know, algorithmic trading, or another advertising optimization tool with open AI. Just look at solving something that you know, your kids will be proud of. Right. So so that's what excites me, I think, I think I'm a stalker. I am the firecracker. And I've got the chance to fire crack technology ecommerce in 10 years ago. And I think now I want to fire crack this in Southeast Asia. It didn't come just like that. It's a series of events. When I was a student, I met incredible scientists. And we co created a Makerspace in Paris, focused on sustainability. Were a bit early in the game. It was 12 years ago. But those guys really brainwashed me and made me realise the importance of science and hardware. You know, where I was so passionate about software these guys to me hardware is important. And they've done so much good things since them some of the companies that we used to do incubate at the time with that makerspace is now a climate tech company with 100 million dollar replacing the ink production with bio ink, right? For example, right reducing tonnes and tonnes of co2, right. So that was 12 years ago, right. And then lastly, how had an accident during COVID, where I almost drowned doing doing spearfishing, because of a plastic bag, and then plastic bag, I think was from you know, ecommerce delivery. So it was, it was kind of, you know, God sent me a sign that, okay, you got your small exit, now you got a little bit of money, you're going to just spend it on stupid stuff, or you're going to actually do something with your time and and with that money to do a bit a bit more meaning, right. And so they're really that before and after moment, I think that was the trigger for me to decide to look and spend next 10 years in that space. So so far, it's been two years, eight years to go. That's my commitment. But let's see, you know, I think, I think I think there's a lot that's going to happen next next few years. And I think, I think maybe we may be a very small group of foreign people now. But, you know, just like software has been eating the world, you know, 20 years ago, I think climate tech is going to eat the world. Because that's the that's the only way forward. We need to adapt to
Tarmo Virki 36:47
a loop that eating the world is lit not literally, it's the actually kind of
Djoann Fal 36:54
I would say climatic will regenerate the world. Right? So I've been eating the world cannot take regenerate the world. And so everybody is going to be a climate tech intrapreneur Walker investor, because simply companies who are not going to be sequela Net Zero 50 years from now, they're just not going to exist. Right? Is this a paradigm economic economical shift that is happening. And and and there is with that there is that generational wealth that is also transitioning, is that you really have the old walled and the new wall, right, and there's just no way we can continue doing what we do. Right can see on plastic, this is very visible, but the invisible things, you know, is co2. And and there's no way we can continue doing that so that people will actually get it now. The people who are shaping what's the solution to continue to have a nice lifestyle, while being more secure and sustainable. And at zero, they're going to be the next trillionaires is no wonder Elon Musk is a trillionaire. Right? It's just the first of 1000. Right. And that's not my words, this is you know, the Blackrock CEO was the next 1000 billionaires will be in Klamath tech. Right. So I think this is kind of the abuse wave coming. Now the question is, what do you deal with this? How do you contribute in your own way in a meaningful way, with the limited limited resources and limited time that you have as a human being? But I think everybody can contribute. Right. And very excitingly, you see a lot of Twitter, Facebook, people are getting fired in the US and they now join those climate tech company as a walker. Good, right. This is this is this is what I mean, right? Absolutely. And doesn't have to be just founders or investors can be walkers, tenants, students, artists, right, scientists.
Tarmo Virki 38:53
Good. That's a great point to wrap up this episode. Thank you for joining us.
Djoann Fal 38:59
Thanks for having me. And yeah, pressure to exchange more and having you're here in Southeast Asia with us. Thanks.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai