45:10 Jun 2, 2026
A New Approach to Energy Storage | Thomas Nann, Founder & CEO @ Allegro Energy
Thomas Nann built Allegro Energy's flow battery platform from a microemulsion electrolyte discovery, then had to abandon their first prod...
Climate change is one of the defining challenges of our time, and solving it requires more than good science. It requires capital, strategy, and the people willing to take real financial risk on unproven technologies. That is why Climate Finance and Venture Capital comes up again and again on The Grove.
Across episodes, the throughline is this: how do founders attract funding for climate solutions that often carry long development timelines, high capital requirements, and uncertain markets? Guests like Thomas Nann of Allegro Energy speak openly about what it takes to build a company around a genuinely new approach to energy storage, including the investor conversations, the funding gaps, and the moments where the business model has to evolve alongside the science.
What you will find in this collection is not abstract financial theory. These are working founders and investors talking honestly about how climate capital actually moves, where it stalls, and what conditions make it possible for a hard tech company to survive long enough to matter.
If you are a founder trying to understand how to position your company for climate-focused investors, an investor trying to build conviction in an unfamiliar sector, or simply someone trying to understand how money shapes which climate solutions get built, this is a useful place to start. Browse the episodes below to hear those conversations in full.
45:10 Jun 2, 2026
Thomas Nann built Allegro Energy's flow battery platform from a microemulsion electrolyte discovery, then had to abandon their first prod...
41:48 Mar 10, 2026
Greg Newbloom built Membrion's ceramic desalination membrane by walking away from two failed startups first.
46:50 Mar 10, 2026
Gaurav and Anat Tewari claim their Zero Ox Tech gives retail-ready meat cuts a 120-day shelf life, eliminating a $3 billion annual indust...
51:41 Mar 3, 2026
Steve Kloos maps a $1.6 trillion water sector and explains why flood forecasting startup Provisico is crushing it.
38:41 Mar 2, 2026
Daniel Russek built Atarraya over 17 years to prove shrimp farming can close its nitrogen loop without poisoning the ocean.
50:44 Feb 23, 2026
Serena Dao spent years at pre-seed to Series C climate hardware startups before the Engine, and argues carbon capture only survives if it...
36:09 Feb 19, 2026
Aukrit Unahalekhaka built a million-farmer AgTech platform in Thailand, then walked away to bet on biochar.
1:08:01 Feb 9, 2026
Anthony DeOrsey explains why China's EV market grew from dozens to hundreds of companies before most collapsed, and what the US misreads...
51:03 Jan 20, 2026
John Robinson, after 17 years in water and wastewater, argues the industry's biggest obstacle is that everyone already thinks they unders...
1:16:00 Dec 22, 2025
Hampus Jakobsson of Pale Blue Dot argues the planet's inefficient 'operating system' is the largest investable opportunity humanity has e...
52:15 Dec 8, 2025
Rod Adams founded a small modular reactor company in 1993, decades before the term 'SMR' entered mainstream climate discourse.
46:58 Dec 8, 2025
Dr. Liz Whitney's PhD compared carbon movement across forest, agricultural, and urban coastal sites in the mid-Atlantic, where sea level...
39:52 Dec 4, 2025
Sophia Xu's Carbon Bridge makes microbes 500% more productive by solving a physics problem, not a biology one.
45:01 Nov 25, 2025
Jimmy Chiu turned a $1.9M DOE grant into Loop CO2's first 20-liter CO2-to-polyester reactor, scaling chemistry that sat dormant for 40 ye...
38:34 Nov 20, 2025
Ben Soltoff's MIT book on climate entrepreneurship argues startups are one route to impact, not the only one.
32:14 Nov 20, 2025
Mo Balapour turned a Drexel PhD project on coal ash into SusMaX, a company recycling landfill waste into construction aggregate.