Something that often gets lost in discussions about climate change is the massive health benefits the world would realize by ceasing to burn fossil fuels.
Pollution from coal, oil and natural gas isn’t just responsible for respiratory diseases like asthma and lung cancer, but also strokes, heart disease and even premature death. Fine particulate matter produced by combustion has been linked to greater risk of kidney disease, diabetes, preterm birth, osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s.
What’s more, a warming planet poses numerous health risks on its own. Extreme weather events like heat waves increase the risk of death among older adults and infants. Infectious diseases like malaria, dengue, Vibrio and numerous tick-borne illnesses thrive in warmer conditions, spreading those threats farther toward the poles than ever before.
Which is how I found myself, a climate tech reporter, talking with two partners from RA Capital, an investment firm better known for its positions in life sciences and healthcare.
A few years ago, the firm realized that even if it could be fantastically successful, backing myriad companies that could produce successful therapies that cure various cancers and other diseases, people would still be dying by the millions from the effects of pollution, said Kyle Teamey, managing partner of planetary health at RA Capital. If the firm didn’t also address the root cause of many diseases, it would effectively be failing at its mission to make people healthier.
“In an unhealthy environment, you just don’t have healthy people,” Teamey told TechCrunch+.
Teamey and his colleague Brigid O’Brien, also a managing partner for RA Capital Planetary Health, joined the firm in January to lead the team. So far, they’ve made two investments that have been made public: The first was in August where the partners led a $30.5 million Series C round in Sortera Technologies, a startup that sorts metals using AI. The second, which saw RA Capital participating in a $30 million Series B round in AM Batteries, was just announced on Monday. That company has a new take on electrode production for lithium-ion batteries, one that uses dry coating to significantly reduce the amount of energy required in gigafactories.
Those two investments give a peek into the verticals Teamey and O’Brien are focusing on. Critical minerals tops the list — no surprise given O’Brien’s previous experience overseeing venture investing at BHP, the Australian mining giant. Teamey has a particular interest in circularity. (“Everybody jokes and says I love to talk trash.”) They’ll also be looking for companies that restore environmental quality and those that are working to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing, agriculture and energy.
Some of those categories are pretty broad, which should give the new team wide latitude to study areas it finds promising. One area that caught me by surprise was forever chemicals, including PFAS, which is not something that often comes up when talking to investors. “We’re doing a deep dive in forever chemicals,” O’Brien said. “One of the team members right now is deep into that, researching what are the sort of alternative materials but also on the environmental remediation side.”
Though both of the planetary health team’s early investments were midstage venture deals, they aren’t focused on a single stage. “We’ve been multistage investors for our whole careers, and we’re continuing to invest from the very, very early stages to roughly the early part of the growth phase of a company,” Teamey said.
Teamey and O’Brien met while working at In-Q-Tel, the venture capital firm associated with the CIA. Later, Teamey went to Breakthrough Energy Ventures and O’Brien went to BHP. Over the years, the two stayed in touch and worked on some deals together.
Where do they hope to put their money? Certainly into companies that fall within the verticals mentioned above. But they’re also interested in finding hardware and software companies that are using technology that’s free from science risk. That might come in the form of later-stage companies or it might come from early-stage startups that are repurposing technology from another industry. Whatever the sector, O’Brien said they’d be analyzing the entire value chain to see where they can put their LPs’ money to its most effective use.
Neither could disclose the size of RA Capital’s Planetary Health fund or the size of checks they’ll be writing, citing regulations relating to the broader firm’s work as a registered investment adviser. What they could say, though, was that they are currently investing.
Without details on the size of the fund, it’s hard to determine just how large of an impact RA Capital hopes to have in this space. But given the firm’s longevity and success in the life sciences, it’s unlikely it’ll settle for anything small.
What details we do have, particularly the fact that the planetary health team plans to invest across the startup life cycle, from early stage to growth, suggests that it’s looking to fill a role that is less common in the climate tech space. Teamey admitted as much, saying that he and O’Brien are “intentional on being complementary with other funds in the marketplace,” adding that it will allow them to collaborate with a range of firms. That sort of teamwork is surprisingly common in climate tech and could explain why the sector continues to buck industry trends.
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