So Long 2024

A moment of reflection before looking forward...

What a year it’s been at MCJ. We started with announcing our new fund and a refreshed identity for the firm—and didn’t stop there. We leaned into change, doubled down on live podcast recordings, and evolved our show to reflect the future we’re hoping to build.

The journey continues — but it looks a little different now. Change has a way of shaking things up, pushing us to think bigger, and inviting other voices to the table. Through Inevitable, we’re hosting critical conversations that span industries, economies, and the very systems we rely on, exploring the impacts of energy and climate change on our current lives and our future.

Now more than ever, we recognize that dialogue is a two-way street. In 2025, we’re excited to experiment with new ways to engage you — our listeners and readers — as part of the conversation.

So, before we throw ourselves into what’s next, we’re taking a moment to look back on MCJ’s content, community and capital efforts from the past year. Thank you for showing up, for listening, for questioning, and for pushing us forward. We’re building something here — one episode, one conversation, one connection at a time.

Let’s keep rewriting what’s possible.

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🎧 Top Conversations from 2024:

From hyperscalers and hydrogen to carbon removal and corporate clean energy procurement—and plenty more in between—we covered a wide range of topics on the podcast. Even so, a few standout guests captured listeners’ attention:

• Kim Stanley Robinson: Technology, Climate, and Capitalism
  The renowned sci-fi author delved into the urgent need for systemic reform to tackle climate change, critiquing capitalism as an outdated system. He examined the relationship between humans and nature and emphasized the role of technology as a tool rather than a savior. Listen here.

• Giulia Siccardo (DOE MESC): Building Resilient Supply Chains
  We begin with a history lesson on why manufacturing shifted offshore from the 1980s to the 2010s and its impact on the American workforce. Then, we dive into MESC's formation and the initiatives driving manufacturing back to U.S. borders. Listen here.

• Christina Yagjian (Cargill): Corporate Clean Energy Procurement
  As more clean energy comes online, we wanted to hear how corporations navigate RECs, PPAs, and all the other acronyms associated with clean power procurement. Christina covers Cargill’s decarbonization plans, areas for improvement in their supply chain and operations, and her company’s larger role in agriculture and commodities. Listen here.

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📧 The Reads You Loved:

• Inside Job: Crafting Climate Careers Without Changing Employers, by Drew Wilkinson, Co-founder of Microsoft’s employee sustainability community

• It's Time to Tell the Truth About Nature by Zoe Balmforth, Co-founder of Pivotal Future

• The Need for Alternatives to Lithium-Ion Batteries in Stationary Energy Storage by Sidd Mallannagari

• A Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity to Modernize Hydropower and Protect the Fish in Our Waters by Gia Schneider, Co-founder & Chief Commercial Officer of Natel Energy

• The Hidden Emissions of Grid-Scale Batteries — and How to Fix It by Jacob Mansfield, Co-founder and CEO of Tierra Climate

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🔥 More Highlights:

• We published 61 new podcast episodes, including 4 recordings in front of a live audience in San Francisco, Houston and New York.

• We welcomed thousands of new followers on MCJ’s social media. If you don’t already, check us out on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok (while you still can!).

• 6.5k new readers (like YOU) subscribed to the MCJ newsletter. Shout-out to all of our new fans, thanks for helping us hit 40k total subscribers!

• We had 187.5k video views across MCJ’s social media, thanks to our amazing Content Producer, Zoë Furlong.

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💸 The MCJ Portfolio in Focus:

Since we officially closed the MCJ 2023 fund at $80.6M, we’ve been busy deploying capital into new and existing portfolio companies along two dual themes: the transition of energy and industry and tackling the impacts of climate change.

• In 2024, MCJ made 17 investments in startups, including new portfolio companies and follow ons to a handful of existing portfolio companies.

• Most of our new investments were focused in the energy sector – from generation to storage – including Paces, Verse, Base Power, The Nuclear Company and a few more to be announced in the future.

• We hit the road with investments in TELO Trucks and Zeno, both electrifying the transportation of goods, services and people.

• 2 companies in the carbon removal and utilization space, Heirloom and Twelve, were follow-on investments from our Fund I family.

In 2025, we’ll continue focusing on founders building solutions across energy, industry, and resilience.

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🗓️ A Year in the Collective:

Finally, we launched our new Member Hub – a directory, messaging and profile management tool that works in tandem with the MCJ Slack. We connected thousands of members online and in person, leading to more conversations than we could possibly count.

• MCJ members are spread throughout 50+ countries and in 2024, they gathered in person at 40 different events, across cities like Berlin, San Francisco, New York, Houston, Minneapolis, Paris, London and more.

• We hosted 64 virtual events – everything from Women in Climate meetups to MCJ Collective Idea Jams.

• Members stayed active in conversations, with 84% of messages exchanged privately in Slack rather than in public channels.

• Nearly 900 people completed the MCJ Talent Form, and we made 406 introductions between MCJ portfolio companies and folks looking for their next role.

• We paused applications for a few months, but that didn’t slow applications down - over 1700 people applied to join the Collective!

2025 will be no different - we’re doubling down on creating timely and high-value ways to connect, and more routes to further your work and career with our support. Not a member? Join here and fill out our talent form.

See you next year!

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The MCJ Collective Newsletter is a free weekly email curating news, jobs, Inevitable podcast episodes, and other noteworthy happenings in the MCJ Collective community.

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