How do you define the climate crisis?

Climate change is, of course, a global phenomenon caused by human activity. Because there is no approach to solving or mitigating that works across the board, in every part of the globe, VertueLab focuses on tech entrepreneurship, innovation, and deployment in our home, the Pacific Northwest of the United States. While our ecological, geographic, and political circumstances here are particular, we believe that what we learn and succeed with here can be useful in and adapted to other regions. 

VertueLab sounds different from other organizations in this space. How do you operate? 

We are! We function as an emulsifier, bringing together multiple facets of the climate tech and innovation spaces by providing funding, business acceleration, scaling support, and technical assistance. As a nonprofit, we have superpowers in our flexibility to invest in entrepreneurs who may be off the radar of traditional firms, as well as in the ability to tap philanthropic dollars and direct them into community-focused startups. 

How are you different from Silicon Valley investing firms?

We’re different in several ways, but the most distinctive is our focus on underrepresented communities as sources of historically untapped potential and wisdom. Communities have a right to be involved in technology that aims to solve their problems. Our investments use an inclusive approach to take into account the full spectrum of lived climate realities. We know that when we solve problems for communities that have historically been least considered, we solve for many others as well.

What is catalytic funding?

Catalytic funding is investment that yields bigger impact by attracting multiple streams of complementary resources—financial, experiential, and more. VertueLab works with a wide-array of partners in investment, technology, philanthropy, public policy and other arenas to ensure that our investments maximize their potential for impact.

What do you mean by place-based?

By place-based we mean that we focus specifically on climate tech and entrepreneurs in Washington and Oregon. These two states have economic, political, ecological conditions that make them strategic for impactful investing. Moreover, we can work for change at scale. Combined, Washington and Oregon have GDPs of $1.2 trillion.