Participated · Seed · Mar 2023

Calculum is a Miami-based fintech that uses advanced analytics and AI to help companies optimize supplier selection, payment terms, supply-chain disruption risk, cash flow, and sustainability. Founded in 2021 by Oliver Belin, the platform provides data-driven insights for treasury and procurement teams to compare with peers and find opportunities down to the supplier level. Calculum delivers automated negotiation scripts tailored to each supplier to help teams secure better terms. The company says its platform identifies up to 20% in free cash flow for every supplier spend analyzed. Calculum has a partnership with London-based InvestVerte to provide ESG metrics that let companies use payment terms to incentivize supplier compliance. It positions its AI-driven treasury solution as an embedded, enterprise-wide process to generate free cash flow amid elevated interest rates and borrowing costs. Calculum offers an AI-driven platform that analyzes supplier risk and financial metrics to recommend optimal payment terms. Its database covers roughly 750,000 providers, enabling benchmarking of a company's terms against competitors. The company says its platform can free up 8–10% of cash flow for every dollar of spend analyzed, and its clients collectively spend billions with suppliers, including a major multinational pharmaceutical company and the largest treasury management solutions provider. Calculum has added ESG data through a partnership with InvestVerte so buyers can use payment terms to incentivize supplier ESG improvements. Product road map items include an API to integrate with client ERPs and features to help suppliers optimize their negotiations. Calculum was launched in 2021 by Oliver Belin and is Miami-based with 15 employees (10 in Downtown Miami); it plans expansion across Western Europe, North America, and Latin America.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2022

Paces is a renewable energy data platform founded to advance climate-positive development by optimizing land use and addressing energy and climate challenges. The company offers software solutions that shorten complex siting and permitting processes and increase transparency. Its tools aim to accelerate construction of clean energy infrastructure by supporting faster decision-making. Paces provides services for renewable energy developers, industrial loads, and large-capacity grid connections. The platform’s goal is to ensure more projects successfully connect to the grid and meet future energy demand. Recently the company completed a financing round reported in the article. Paces is a data platform that aggregates opaque regulatory, zoning, and grid interconnection information to help green infrastructure projects be faster, more profitable, and location-optimized. The founders are Charles Bai (ex-Facebook AI engineer) and James McWalter (early Hello Vera employee and sales lead). Paces’ product provides deep due-diligence data and advanced analytics so users can quickly identify suitable sites instead of manually vetting parcels. The platform aims to increase approval success rates for developers and shorten interconnection and permitting timelines. The company also plans to surface which local actors are blocking projects to drive political and permitting transparency. Paces raised $1.9M to further develop its data and analytics capabilities to derisk green infrastructure development.

Participated · Seed · May 2022

Enduring Planet exclusively funds climate entrepreneurs with a revenue-based financing product aimed at companies that mitigate emissions or help climate adaptation. It promises rapid underwriting, offering checks up to $500,000 and pledging to deliver capital in under 30 days. The firm lends to companies generating more than $25,000 per month, taking up to 7% of monthly revenue plus as much as 3% off the top and charging a 1% origination fee until loans are repaid. Enduring Planet requires sizable gross margins (north of 35%) so recipients can weather monthly payments and is piloting a second instrument to offer non-dilutive capital to firms that don’t qualify for its revenue-based product. To date it has funded two startups, New Sun Road and Aquaoso, and positions itself as an alternative or supplement to dilutive venture capital. CEO and co-founder Dimitry Gershenson emphasizes speed of execution given the urgency of climate challenges.