The fund investing in Israeli founders fighting climate change

Firstime Ventures (Firstime) is a $250M AUM fund investing in Israeli founders and companies that are building a sustainable & accessible future for all. Firstime Ventures is investing in Israeli entrepreneurs that are building scalable products with a clear business model.

Fund Snapshot
Stage: Seed – Series A
Check Size: $2-8M
Geography: Israel or Israeli Founders
Lead/Follow: Both
Revenue/Valuation Thresholds: Post-Product Market Fit

About the Fund
Why was the fund created?
Firstime Ventures started as a successful government-backed incubator called "The Time." Firstime was created to support these incubator companies.

In 2020, Firstime started a sustainability fund that focused on businesses that aligned with the UN Sustainability Development Goals. Within the scope of investing in sustainable startups, the partners all understood the importance of climate. Over the next 3 years, Firstime hopes to deploy $100M to combat the climate crisis.

What is a contrarian idea Firstime believes to be true/accurate?
Firstime doesn’t see climate as a niche – climate is a paradigm. The fund sees climate as a generalist thesis because it allows for investment in energy, agriculture, circular economy, and many other sectors.

What domains in climate tech does Firstime have the greatest expertise in?
While Firstime has more experience in software, over time the team’s thesis and investments have included digitally enabled hardware that can make a difference when it comes to climate change.
Within climate, Firstime will look at opportunities across many verticals, including agriculture, circular economy, energy, water, carbon reduction, carbon measurement, and transparency.

What type of portfolio support does Firstime provide?
Firstime is proactive when helping startups, but they also know how to avoid backseat driving. Firstime can help startups with:
Follow on funding
Marketing and branding
Strategic planning
BD
PR/Media
Business and financial plans
Sustainable reporting
Carbon measurement

About Investments
How can a startup get investment from Firstime?
Reach out to them via LinkedIn or on their website www.firstime.vc/apply

What is Firstime’s investment process and timeline?
Firstime is considerate of a founder’s time and emotions, and only takes meetings if there is enough interest. Their diligence process usually takes between 2-6 months, and takes 45 days or so from term sheet to check.

When engaged in due diligence, Firstime spends a lot of time focused on the founders and the team. Itamar Weizman, the Head of Climate Investments at Firstime, says that "[VC] is a business of nine funerals and one wedding." As such, Firstime invests in the people they want to work with over the next 5-10 years. He continued on saying that "You need to pick the people that you want to go to the funeral with, which is tough. Sometimes people fail, not because they weren't good enough, but because of reasons you can’t control."

Besides the people behind a startup, Firstime also needs to understand the narrative and analyze the opportunity.

What would make Firstime consider deviating from its typical criteria?
Firstime’s current fund is limited to investing in 15-20 companies over the next 3 years (due to fund size). As a result, Firstime adheres to its investment criteria.

🛢️ New SEC Rules On Fossil Fuels: What They Say; Why It Matters

The SEC on 21st March proposed a set of rules that will move US companies toward a financial reckoning with their use of fossil fuels and with the growing climate crisis.
This could yet not be a big deal. The SEC has to take comments – and many, to be sure, will oppose the change, particularly looking for ways to eliminate or water down the rules.

🛥️ The Most Promising Electric Solution For Boating Pollution

Flux Marine has designed an electric marine engine for boats that bests both the traditional and developing outboard products on the market.
Their all-electric outboards are devoid of all air, noise, and water pollution.
After a successful Series-A round, Flux Marine looks to scale operations and launch their own boat packages.

🌾 Takachar: A Win-Win For Farmers and Air Quality in Rural India

Takachar is geared towards remote, rural communities, with a focus on India
The small-scale and portable systems are able to serve farmers and utilities who might face logistical hurdles with more centralized operations
Soil productivity gains of 20-30% are a major driver for sales.

🔋 A Novel Method For Recycling Lithium-Ion Batteries • Princeton NuEnergy

PNE is turning spent cathode materials, the most expensive part of a lithium-ion battery, into pristine new cathodes
There are currently around 465,000 tons of used electric vehicle batteries, where PNE’s technology can be used.

UN Sustainability Development Goals built environment space Swarnav S PujariPS VC DEEP DIVE Series ACheck Size successful governmentbacked incubator many other sectors clear business model EMERGING CLIMATE STARTUPS broader climate investment

The fund investing in Israeli founders fighting climate change

Key phrases

Older messages

The emerging European a16z

Why you should raise from Maersk

Fundraising strategy for Leo DiCaprio's circular economy fund

What it takes to raise from Shell Ventures

The real opportunity in carbon accounting

You Might Also Like

Knowing is not enough

#177 | Request for Startups, Real Estate Tech Themes, & more

The $4M SaaS nobody knows about

Twitter’s former Head of Product opens up: being fired, meeting Elon, changing stagnant culture, building consumer…

Parea AI, Notion to Calendar, and VisualInvoicer

From 0 experience to 160 orders for her business

What’s 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #390

Try our premium newsletter for just $19/month

🤖 $34K MRR - Simple chatbot builder tool

🗞 What's New: Lower your website's bounce rate