Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Hey, Alex. ⁓ This is Jonas, I'm ⁓ a ⁓ partner with the Footprint Fund, of the Footprint firm. We recently had a close of our sort seed of 76 million euros. It's our first fund. We focus broadly on climate tech, investing ⁓ sort of across Northern Europe. typical check sizes from half a million to two million euros. And we deploy a fairly special model in that we coexist with a sizable advisory firm and so we bring, we try to bring a lot more than just money to the table. We bring a broad network and an army of smart folks, we think. we cover sort of, I say broadly in a way, three overarching themes. We cover energy and infrastructure, we cover materials and manufacturing, and we cover sort of nature and climate. And we're deeply interested in the food and ag space and have made a couple of years ago and recently recommitted to Octarine Bio, which is a biotech company that has broad applications, including into the food space that I'd love to tell you more about.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, I'm really excited about this conversation. was looking at the headcount of the fund and I was like, I think they have 45 people. Like how does a 76 million dollar Euro fund have 45 people? just did the math. fees. That sounds like a 55 % management fees. Like that's going to be an interesting one. So talk through this really unique dimension of why is there, what is an advisory firm? Why does an advisory firm need its own fund?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah, what's the management fee of that one? ⁓ Yeah, the Footprint firm was founded in 2019 by three people who had great careers behind them. Two of them had worked actually all three in consulting. Two of them had been entrepreneurs and started businesses. And they got together at this time when it was becoming so clear that the climate problem was a massive issue that needed tackling. And they wanted to start a new firm. And basically they said, what can we do to make the sustainable, to make the sort of green transition possible? was quite basically the idea they founded the company. And they said, we can ⁓ the big existing corporates and the late stage investors on their green transition on everything from strategy to due diligence, to how they gather insights and intelligence on how they are faring on their green transition. But then rather than, you know, take out the money for ourselves, why don't we take the profits we make off that and give that and donate some of our time and our network and knowledge to these budding startups that are trying to tackle this crisis with like an innovative mindset of bringing new disruptive technologies to the ⁓ the debate and ⁓ reality. And so Footprint from day one was born as this idea of doing two things under one roof. And that if you dedicate yourself to the green transition and you kind of worked in this field tension, you could really add a lot of value. that's kind of what they did for years. I came along a few years into the journey and said, why don't you raise some money so we can do some bigger checks? And then we started working on the fund a few years ago and just had a final close on that.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, and congratulations on that, especially in the clean tech space. me, when I read that, was like, my first guy was like, isn't that conflict of interest, right? Like, ⁓ basically consulting bigger players and funds, ⁓ then you're also creating a solution that you're probably consulting them on by investing into the companies that you think would solve that for that problem, right? Isn't there a conflict of interest in that dynamic?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah, but I think there's a conflict of interest in all consulting in that you also often consult with competing entities and that's something you have to manage how you do that. So yeah, for sure it requires that we're clear about it. In reality, it's not so often real challenge to be honest. We're adamant we advise big companies or investors that if they need a certain solution and it's something we've invested in, then we'll clearly... you know, we'll clearly state that that's the case and we'll probably even guide them to some of the others we have looked at and know in the space. And be fine if they choose something else. That's the only way we can have that relation. But we should believe it's the best solution since we in it, right? And so in reality, they're pretty far from each other. We invest super early and the clients we have tend to be super large. So it's not ⁓ such a problem in reality.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, understood. of the things I imagine is one of the added benefits of your fund is that you can actually potentially when you do DD on startups, you can actually go back to some of your clients ⁓ actually ask them insights into the, you know, that will inform your own thesis, investment thesis as well. ⁓

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: For And we get access to knowledge, know, that people have worked on because they trust us and they ⁓ care, like, contrary to popular belief, plenty of people in industry care about the green transition. And if they don't see it as harmful to help us, you know, accelerate our understanding of a space that they're interested in, you know, in most cases, our interests are aligned. For them to see those technologies that they're scouting, mature, they need to see venture capital flow in that direction. And so they're interested in us being interested in developing the space that will ultimately bring them the solutions that they need to transform. So think most cases we have deeply aligned interests actually.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, wonderful. And always share... to startups because a lot of times startups when get founders get together, we like to hit on VCs. That's like it's one of their pleasures of life. You know, it's like bitch and moan. And but I do highlight that we should have a lot of empathy for VCs because they're just like us. They had to go through a fundraising journey themselves and they had to raise a fund. It's their own startup in that way. Maybe you can just give us a little insight. Who are the LPs in the fund as much as you can share? know, it's not easy to raise a 76 million euro fund.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah, yeah for sure

Alex Shandrovsky: especially around climate tech in this environment, right? That's not an easy thing. you just take us through a little bit about who are LPs, how long did it take you guys to raise the fund, ⁓ ⁓ can we learn from your fundraising process? ⁓ either fund managers can be inspired by or startup founders.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah, I see a lot of good questions in there, Alex. So like we have a fairly condensed LP base. I'd say we probably have the 10 largest LPs making up 80 % of our fund or something like that. So it's fairly condensed. Then we have a small tail and we have the luxury of being able to pick and choose among the sort of smaller tickets. they're all, I would say a little bit think of them like BAs that add something to the fund. They're part of our network. They're people we know and trust. so we have a fairly condensed LP base. And it's all Danish. So I would say we had a big advantage of our advisory business is mostly, we do a fair bit of non-Danish advisory, but it is centered around little kingdom of Denmark. And we had a lot of trust in that community. And I think that was part of accelerating that, ⁓ that had kind of even for a fund one, we had a little bit of an institutional vibe because we'd been around and they knew us for all work we did and trusted us implicitly.

Alex Shandrovsky: That's a really interesting...

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Some of the investors are in over holdings, the investment arm of the No Nordish Foundation. It's of the largest family offices called Northeast Family Office. It's a ⁓ Danish philanthropic foundation called Real Dania and a number of other in that type. So a lot of it would be, we have a lot of these Danish enterprise foundations and family offices. That's the typical investor with us.

Alex Shandrovsky: I have not heard of another consulting company that has a fund. Like I'm just thinking McKinsey. Does McKinsey have a VCR? Like does VW still have, does VW, maybe Boston Consulting Group, maybe they have a PE firm, I believe, maybe. But a VCR.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: I don't think so too. ⁓ Bain had, but Bain operated Bain Capital on the side from day one. I think the closest you get is a British company called Systemic. They have a very sizable climate advisory arm and a very successful VC fund. And that was part of the inspiration. operate them more independently from each other than we do, but they still live under the same roof and they still sort of cross-pollinate. We've taken it a step further and really tried to cross leverage the resources. So, but that's the one example. Most people don't try to do that because doing one thing is hard enough. So trying to do two things at the same time is not per se easier.

Alex Shandrovsky: is your advisory, ⁓ is your fund, let's just say, expecting traditional VC returns? Is it functioning under similar thesis to VC, or is this more like, you know, it has obviously a social mission, it's bound by that social mission to achieve. So therefore, know, ⁓ returns seen as maybe can be gauged by different things in traditional 30 AR type of ⁓ solution.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: You know, I mean, I think the sort of non-consensus belief of our fund is that there exists a meaningful space of deep impact, massive outcome investments in the climate space. And that's what we're trying to invest in. We believe that we can find the companies where there's a very tight correlation between the impact the company delivers for the planet and the financial return it can deliver to our investors. And that's what we're trying to deliver. We believe that we can find the where there's a very tight correlation between the impact the company delivers for the planet and the return it can deliver to our investors. And that's what we're trying to deliver. And so I will not compromise on return. But I always say when we get asked this question, are you impact first? Are you return first? We are impact first in the sense the reason we're doing it is the impact. But we believe that the only way to achieve massive impact is also to achieve massive financial success. And so I will not compromise on return. But I always say when we get asked this question, are you impact first? Are you return first? We are impact first in the sense the reason we're doing it is the impact. But we believe that the only way to achieve massive impact is also to achieve massive financial success. The other thing is called philanthropy and it's just like a variant of philanthropy. And to do that successfully, you need a lot more money than we have. So a different business.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah. But the timelines of you found a similar, right? It's 10 plus two.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: It's actually 12 plus 2, I think, technically. ⁓

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, right. Understood. Great. first of all, I think this is a really interesting use case where you've basically almost cultivated your LP base through a business, right? Your consulting business cultivated trust and an LP base. And then when you are, and you used to look with this other offering, the potential you could want to consider, which is, will it be the fund, right? But are management fees, just again, you don't have to share with us, but it's curious. ⁓ When you say this, there's not two separate entities, right? Are they under one entity and therefore can imagine if he's covered some of the advisory services or they're two separate entities entirely.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: They have to be two separate entities legally, the top they're owned by the same company, by the same partners, Myself included. And so we're equal partners across. The management I would say, don't the time we commit to the fund. And that's because part of the pledge of working for the footprint firm is that you get to spend a meaningful portion of your time helping startups and helping them succeed in creating the change everyone here wants to see. And so it was part of what we could sort of promise our investors is would get more bang for the buck than they could anywhere else because we would be over investing time into fund beyond what the management fee could cover. It is a very, I would say, meaningful management And we're very, very humbled that our investors entrust us both with the money and ⁓ pay us. ⁓ do that, we are also dedicating a lot of resources to make this happen.

Alex Shandrovsky: Is there any government LP in the fund?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yes, the Danish government, ⁓ LPIFO, is in on it.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, and I think what's interesting about the... Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood that the Danish LP, government LP is actually very generous from a sense of... It doesn't control your mandate in a lot of ways.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: You know, I didn't feel they did at least. supported, ⁓ think they, you know, they're very, very high quality LP. They obviously see a lot and they have been smart, I think, in also having an international ⁓ base. They actually have a very broad network and a very good view on what good looks like out there in the world. And so I think they've been a very useful LP for us. So of course they've commented and come with ideas, but I think that has been definitely helping us. And I don't think they've been steering. in the sense that some government LPs steer very hard that you have to make a certain number of investments in their country or something like that. Like for us, obviously, we're Danish based. It's not going to be a problem that we won't make Danish investments, but they're not very, very sort of rigid like that. I think they're fairly pragmatic and understand the dynamics of how you create an ecosystem.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, I think if individuals want to have examples of more rigid, you should look at something, Ireland, LPs as government and also South Korea. Look at those, very different bottle. North Korea, I'm not even going to discuss, that's going to be a separate episode. now, geography-wise, what's the geographical focus of the fund?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: The way we've sort of defined it is that it's ⁓ 90 % of the fund in ⁓ Northern Europe, and we define Northern Europe relatively broadly. it's almost anything that doesn't have a coast with the Mediterranean. So we would say, close to being a pan-European fund, we're very, ⁓ again, sort aware that most of our investments have been in Denmark. And so we are cautious in how we expand. ⁓ And because have a high touch... sort of deep engagement model, we needed to really see how does that travel into what geographies and how far, how does distance and time zone affect how we can deliver value to our not our startups, but to the startups we partner with.

Alex Shandrovsky: So I think I feel like I need to do a whole series of just Denmark because I have so many great funds and entrepreneurs I'm interviewing from Denmark on the podcast not by purpose just that's where the money seems to be flowing and and you know just to give our listeners to understand it like Denmark company every six million seven million Yeah Not animals. Yeah. So so this is this or breweries we're talking about six million people and there's quite a lot of funding that goes there So if you're thinking about starting a company

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: six. If it's people we're talking about. you

Alex Shandrovsky: You might want to consider moving to Denmark yesterday. Just a consideration there. So take us now to your most recent investment. That's how I've heard about you. Very interesting space. Very interesting space. Tell us about Octarine. What was the thesis? And maybe the way I like to ask this is, did you have a thesis already about colorants?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: You're welcome. Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Shandrovsky: and you found Octarine or did you feel you found a business and then you looked, know, like is it the thesis first or is it the company first and then you like build a thesis?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: I mean... We try to be thesis first as much as we can, but I also think you have to realize this, the complex of climate tech and sustainability is so enormously broad that you can't have your eyes everywhere all the time. We certainly knew very well the broader problems, including dyeing as a problem because one of our three co-founders actually, her previous job, she had a very, very successful... founding and exiting a fashion company. So she was acutely aware of the strain they had been causing on the planet with that and the disruption that was needed there. So we were tuned in on that. in this case, ⁓ came from my sort of historic biotech network that this phenomenal founder team was working on this tech platform and they had sort of seen this color. So the color was actually also an afterthought for the company. They started more in like a medical biotech ⁓ and found this amazing color platform they started working on. ⁓

Alex Shandrovsky: Yes, so for those people who want to just like, you know, if you're into psilocybin and you want to go deep and you know, we're not talking about mushrooms making you see colors, we're talking about real colors here. Would that be...

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Exactly. But it's really funny, right? That they were literally making psilocybin and it would both make you see colors and it would actually have beautiful colors. So think that's a value prop for you there.

Alex Shandrovsky: this. I think the universe god, she has a very good sense of humor. just like fungi making colors is also very interesting. Like how does fungi make colors? It actually does, yes. at my chromium, you'll see it. ⁓ let's then understand how did you meet ⁓ Because I think they were incubated. Was that correct? They were incubated almost like the spin out of the novel or? ⁓

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: You Yeah, so they were one of the early, early that went through the BioInnovation Institute. And my prior work, also at the Novo Nordisk Foundation, where I spent a couple of years as part of management there, they were that one of the first cohorts there. So I knew of them from back then, but back then I knew them as a of a drug company and not a bio solutions company in that sense. That chairman I knew ⁓ from my there. he sort of let me know that they were midway executing this pivot. And he thought bringing on the knowledge of a footprint and our sort of skillset in the green transition and network into that would be super helpful. And so we partnered, and to be completely clear, ⁓ we partnered ⁓ probably couple of years ago, did an initial investment, and then we led ⁓ a ⁓ sizable follow-on round also recently.

Alex Shandrovsky: So this is a follow-on, you it went from a C to the C or Z, you decided to put an additional cash in. Okay, so you knew of the business already, you already sitting, you you had a clear understanding of where it was going. And you said, look, we feel confident to join this. Now, when I think Colorants, least being in United States, I think Colorants are on food, right? This is a little bit of a different solution as well. Is that what you're saying?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They are targeting food also, they're beginning to. mean, the initial bridgehead has been into textile, and that's for sure still a core priority. they are, as they develop and are maturing quite fast, they are beginning to actually get inbound, unsolicited inbound interest from food ⁓ of the US sort of shifts that are ⁓ on artificial food color. So, and of course as a startup, ⁓ that's a pro tip, I think never. Never ignore inbound unsolicited interest from like Fortune 500 companies. You should tend to take that serious.

Alex Shandrovsky: You know, it's that's kind of like a pivot from pivot you start with that with a side assignment for mushrooms Then you go to color and and then you go to food colorants. It's like the the industry is drag in the right place So look what's interesting about this is that you obviously have good insights into the business you were a previous investor Like how do you get a conviction? know, know, you may have a lot of portfolio companies who are looking for the same level of commitment How did you go in your DD process to make the search? No, we're gonna commit here like cuz we even commit to a lot of different companies each so chose this one, what does a DD process look like when accompanied already on the cap table of?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah, I mean, I'll probably take you a little bit back to when we did the already the initial investment because that was sort of part of it. And then we can talk specifically when you decide to double down on something, then what you do, what's your thought process. But when you do deep tech investments, and this was at the time when we made the first investment, and I would say to some extent still is a relatively early tech startup, but it's at least very deep tech. I mean, there's still pre-revenue to day, right? So the first thing the first thing that's always true and that you should never be fooled about is even if you have super deep tech you still need amazing founders that are not only amazing technically but that have the you know energy and the know Level of innovation and skill set to build a really big meaningful company Technology alone doesn't do it and hiring a CEO ⁓ an afterthought is really challenging So you need a stellar founder team and we clearly had that here. And Itachi, the CEO is just a rock star. You'd only have to meet her for 10 seconds to know that she's one of the very few. And the CTO, Nick is, or CSO, I forget what he calls himself, but he's the science guy. He's globally recognized in this particular niche of tampering with yeast to get it to do things it didn't know it wanted to do. So you had a rock star team there and if you looked into the technology, you had a really, really unique and really differentiated technology. those are the two first big things that you need to sort of verify. How is this team unfolding as I get to know them better? Do still feel confirmed as part of the early DD that these people can go through an immense amount of tough decisions and abuse and what the market's going to throw at them and come successful at the other end? Are they armed with a technology that's truly differentiated so that they're able to do something that others have not been able to do before? Because trying to do bio-based color is not a new idea. That has been tried for ⁓ various forms, right? ⁓ not a new idea at all. But we were able to get relatively quickly quite confident that there was something truly unique there. It helped that I knew the science part of it. was amazing in the technological application. It helped that DSM was an investor and they knew the space exceedingly well and had executed already when we came in a really sort of deep technical due diligence. So we could also rely little bit on that.

Alex Shandrovsky: So I think we've measured a lot there, right? So let's break apart all these pieces because this is really interesting, OK? Now, was the first check written by guys?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: want to say late 2023, but I actually forget. should look.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay. And at that point, was it already a focus on colorants, ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ so that's already the pivotal area. ⁓

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah, exactly. were... The medical had been scrapped. The medical part had been scrapped. They were They were in the early phase of leaning into the color side, and we were sort of helping them accelerate.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay. by the way, I like how you said that it's been scrapped because I think this is one of the hard things I see entrepreneurs. I've seen a lot. They kind of like feel like, I still have to do the original mission of the business. And this new business has to be the one that's funding the original one. So actually you kind of kill yourself by clinging onto something that doesn't work. this case, it sounds like to me that they made the decision, no, this idea of side to side been through PF just... This is not necessary. We're going to shut that down. We're to go all in to this new solution. Would that be correct?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah, I think that was what they did and I think that was correct. They still kept and are still keeping alive the broader technology platform that both produced the psilocybin and that produced that. And so they are open for business in that if you're interested, if you have a problem and you're interested in leveraging their knowledge base, they will partner occasionally with companies to help them work on that. that is a small side project. I think they've been fairly thorough in their pivot. ⁓ Yeah, I agree with that.

Alex Shandrovsky: But headcount is being focused on this solution, right? Meaning unless you're being invited by corporate to finance other projects, they're going to focus here. And then what did they do that you felt that they were rock stars and how did they update you about that? Because I think this is, let's say you put a check in Q1-24, right? It's already, it was probably end of 25 that you wrote this check for the series A, would that be correct?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: For sure, absolutely. Exactly. Yeah, probably something.

Alex Shandrovsky: Right, so it's like a year and a half, it's a very traditional, they raise 16 months, okay, they're probably running out of money by Q2 of 26, right? So, you know, what made you guys feel confident about their, how did they communicate with you? You know, and what touch points did they do? Because the reason I bring this up is that I've seen so many founders, what they do is they get the money and they only go back to talking to their investors, like three months before the round of money. Right. Or six months, or they only inform their investors of the good stuff that's happening. Right. It's like, oh, it's great. It's great. It's like, well, well, if it's so great, why can't you bring in new blood into the fund, right? Into the round. Like if it's so great, you said this timeline is going to be this, but it's, you you push it off another eight months and it's classic. It's standard. We already know it's going to get pushed off, but you know, why didn't you communicate? So what about the communication you felt like it was really on point? Cause I'm sure they missed technical milestones. There's no way they would have been older milestones. I'm sure delays were happening, right? It's just normal.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah.

Alex Shandrovsky: But what did they do differently that you liked about the way they were communicating?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: I would say they didn't miss milestones. They were actually one of the rare cases in biotech where they were almost faster than they anticipated. They were collaborating initially with Ginkgo Bioworks on ⁓ scaling making strain more efficient. And that ⁓ executed very, swiftly and actually ahead of plan. And so they've hit milestones technically than I had hoped for commercially. I was probably a little bit too optimistic on the textile chains pace change. And that is one of the things that led us to sort of review these things and say, how do we push this forward the best? And there, that's just the name of the game, as you say, you never take all boxes and you got judge ultimately, you know, do I understand the challenges that we're facing? do I feel that management is being transparent and honest? In this case, I felt, and I've never felt with this company or any other that we invest in, that we get treated like, you know, we don't hear from them. We work with the management quite closely and it's kind of what we sell ourselves So if you're a founder that would like an investor that ⁓ gets the money and then, you know, boggers off they want to call you again, then they should pick someone else than us. So I think we're in a different situation there in that we were part of the journey very much.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, well first of all, congratulations on hitting technical milestones. That they set up for this round and fun. was really interesting. which is congratulations on that. Now the commercial side of it, which is fascinating. Was the expectation that the industry would move faster to give LOIs? Because you have nothing to sell, right? It's still free revenue. And the second thing is that it's interesting, maybe this is important for Our listeners, to understand, you know...

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: you

Alex Shandrovsky: from regulatory standpoint. Is there a regulatory issue around colorants for clothes? Because colorants for food is hell from a regulatory standpoint.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is. it's much easier for, it's not nothing ⁓ textile, but it's much easier. You're but you can say if the interest buy, and they actually have contracts in place, huge but so can sell when they can deliver. there's like a very technical... ⁓ problem not in the actual production but in the formulation and application that needs to be fixed before they can execute on that. So they are basically where they need to be. what I think we saw more broadly is just that textile is an ⁓ large market. They have an extremely compelling and much more compelling than any other bio ⁓ ⁓ bio dye startup we've looked at. And so I believe they will win this market eventually, but it's a very fragmented market. The largest textile company, brand on planet Earth has ⁓ like, don't quote me on the numbers, but it's less than ⁓ % market share of the global textile market. So it's extremely fragmented and they are supplied by hundreds, if not thousands of textile mills that get their textile dyed at, again, thousands of dye houses. Some of them, of course, using the same larger ones, but it's an extremely fragmented value chain. so creating change, even though their solution, that was a big part of the attraction for me, it's completely drop-in. It's extremely easy to work with for the die houses. But just changing the way you work at scale, when your value chain or your supply chain is so fragmented, it just takes time. It really does take time.

Alex Shandrovsky: there a genuine pull ⁓ the consumer that said they want this? Because I know nothing about fashion, I'm not a fashionable guy. So ⁓ know nothing about the problem statements ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ clothes. that's not me. Are consumers even like wanting this? Like with the food industry, there's a government ⁓ push now, right? ⁓ Yeah, I'm sorry, Target is no longer selling artificial dye cereals. If you wanna be selling Target, which you probably wanna do, you probably need to get rid of the synthetic dyes, no option. But I don't think that Target is going out and saying, if you have a synthetic dye in your shirt, we can't sell you a shirt.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Yeah. No, they do have many shirts to sell anyway. And that's part of the problem that we see sometimes is the chicken and the egg problem here. Regulators can't regulate until there's an alternative. The second there is a good alternative, they can regulate. So part of this is also us believing this is actually, it's the second biggest problem in textile. The biggest problem is the footprint of the actual textile itself, recycling that or delivering that in a more sustainable way. And that has historically, if you ask customers, been what they care more about for us.

Alex Shandrovsky: Hahaha

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Dying, textile dyeing, was sort of a little bit the overlooked stepchild of this problem, but a massive problem on a planetary scale, partly on a CO2 emission basis, in that it takes a lot of energy to dye, and you can dye basically at room temperature and much more efficiently with a biodye, like a dye system, like octarene's pure palette, as it's called. But the bigger part is that textile dyeing makes up something in some analysis, close to 20 % of all water pollution on planet Earth. So it's an enormous crunch ⁓ to ⁓ And while I'm not sure consumers are broadly aware of that, I trust when solutions become available at scale, at cost parity, it will be one of those problems that will be solved. But clearly, Running that into motion when you have a very fragmented value takes a little bit longer than if you have more concentrated decision makers being able to just call a shot and do it.

Alex Shandrovsky: Hmm. So how did you get over that objection? Cause that's a strong objection, right? You're wow. Like you're, you're talking about so many different vendors, so many different buyers, very fragmented sales channel, right? It's not controlled by just six or seven players, right? And you just have to get into six or seven and you're done. Like how did you get the conviction to say, you know, I hear the objection, the commercial objection, but I still feel confident. Let's go. Let's go all in on this.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Because it's technically a phenomenally elegant solution, unlike the alternatives that exist out there. So I understand why it hasn't happened yet. That's the first thing I need to understand. Why haven't someone solved this already? I can understand that because the solutions that are there are not good. The second one, the second part of the answer is because of the size of the problem. Quite frankly, if you believe there will be a green transition eventually, you know, this is one of the problems you'll have to tackle. And this is a really good tool to tackle that problem. And then from there, that's why we have a 12 year fund and not a year fund or something like that. It's because we know some of this is gonna take a little bit of time, ⁓ you need some kind of faith in And part of my faith is in Nittaji and Nick and the team's ability to crack this nut.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, okay, well, I think there's no better way to do that. So congratulations on making this bet. I tell people if there was zero risk, this would not be venture, it would just be loans from a bank. We're still a VC fund, 100%. Now, just one last question I have for you before we close out the show.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Exactly. It's different.

Alex Shandrovsky: How did you get the conviction about the founders going back to because I think you've come back again and again. It's about the founders. You know, trust her in five minutes. You can just know that this person what about them stood out to you that you had that faith and again, clearly they had clear communicated that with you was it again. Look, you hit the scientific milestones. I see that you went to the market and you had the commercial conversations. You're trying to go into the business and sell it. It's moving slowly, but it's not moving because of a lack of of let's say action in your part, right? It's like what were the things in behavior you saw that you liked that made you trust?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Some of the things is an ability to articulate the vision and the value proposition and the fit with customers extremely clearly and in a way that resonates. Then it is to go and execute and the pace like from the time they had discovered the color in the fermenter to and I literally I don't know right now, but back then I knew the date, more or less, that they were like, why is it purple actually? Let's figure out what that, it's that thing. So they had meetings with Levi's and ⁓ a of other big names was incredibly short. And the at which they were able to execute constantly ⁓ just told that there was a real ⁓ sense of And I would the last thing is resiliency. They didn't just skip Silesia, Silesia been for fun, right? Something didn't go as planned and and and the energy I sensed in that team having run into a wall to some extent bouncing right back, you know on your feet and looking forward just told me that that you have a team that's unusually resilient and innovative in in finding solutions and in finding value and and those I think you know, I love that analogy of comparing VC to, know, whaling, you know, this, this early research on how, how people argue that the whaling ships were the first, the first venture investments on planet earth. They had like very similar dynamics, same return distribution. A lot would get lost. Some would catch a really big whale and come home really, know, ⁓ in that sense. And I'm a, I'm a sailor. So I, I somehow that analogy stuck with me in some ways it's like, this is just a crew that I would like to jump on a boat with and go on a journey and see if we could catch a big whale.

Alex Shandrovsky: Gosh, well, it sounds like a sequel to Moby Dick novel here. So amazing. Amazing. you've shared a lot with us. We learned tremendous from you. How can we thank you? Even though if I'm a listener right now ⁓ I'm thinking, okay, you know, this has been so generous. Like, ⁓ do you want to happen from this ⁓ What would be the best solution from the listeners? ⁓ How they give back? Who should be reaching out to you? And for what reason?

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: I think first and foremost, the reason I sit here with you, the reason I run own podcast, Impact Supporters, the reason I work with the problems I do in our fund is that we want to make the green transition possible. And the biggest thing is for people, even in this time of global upheaval in many fronts, to remember that this problem hasn't gone away. ⁓ just hasn't. It's not become smaller, it's become bigger. And I'm not trying to be an alarmist. And I'm not ignorant to the pressing matters that are ahead of us with many of the issues we're facing in the world. war, disruption from AI, these things are real, but so is this problem. And we need to tackle them and we need to keep believing that we can tackle them. Because I can tell you as an insider in this, the solutions are largely there. And so as long as someone cares, whether you're a consumer, whether you are a procurement officer or a CEO of a company, transition can be done. It just takes people into it. That for me is my biggest post-Christmas ⁓ wish all you out there. And then, ⁓ always reach if you have a cool new technology that can change the world, then we'd love to hear from you.

Alex Shandrovsky: Incredible. Thank you for this conversation. I personally learned a lot from you.

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren: Thanks Alex, it was a real pleasure and let's stay in touch. I really value your friendship.