You might not know their names, but you have seen their work. Climate tech analysts both report on and guide where investment dollars go. So for the first time this year, we invited three of them to share their views on the state of climate tech at the SOSV Climate Tech Summit (Sept 26-27 / free & virtual).
What can analysts teach us about their research methods as well as the trends, data points, and unknowns shaping climate tech? Two career analysts and one analyst-turned-VC addressed that question.
In 2007, Nat Bullard joined New Energy Finance, a startup analyst firm, and stayed on following its 2009 acquisition by Bloomberg. After serving as Chief Content Officer for BloombergNEF (BNEF), he became a Senior Contributor in 2022 and independent analyst serving as a keynote speaker, board-level strategy facilitator, and venture partner at Voyager. His weekly Bloomberg Green column, Sparklines, reaches 250,000+ newsletter subscribers, and his annual deck on decarbonization is essential reading.
Climate Tech VC (CTVC), launched in 2020, has become a trusted source of data and insights on venture deals, funding trends, and climate policy with a newsletter reaching over 50,000 readers. In January 2023, Mark Taylor joined CTVC as co-founder and Chief Product Officer. Soon after, CTVC raised $1.75M from John Doerr, Tom Steyer, Dawn Lippert, AccelR8, SOSV, and others to launch a new climate intelligence platform (join the waitlist here). Taylor is a former analyst and Head of Product at BNEF, pre- and post-acquisition.
Sierra Peterson is a Founding Partner at NYC-based Voyager and the driving force behind its widely read analyses. Launched in April 2021, Voyager closed a $100M one year later and has led investments in CarbonChain, a carbon traceability platform for industrial firms, and Powerline, which turns electric vehicles into dispatchable power sources. Peterson began her career as an analyst for the International Energy Agency (IEA) and later served in the Obama White House.
What are top analysts seeing at the cutting edge of climate technology research?
The Speakers
Nathaniel (Nat) Bullard
Nathaniel (Nat) Bullard has two decades of experience in energy, climate, and decarbonization. Nat is an experienced analyst, columnist, strategy facilitator, and keynote speaker. He is a senior contributor to BloombergNEF, where he worked for 15 years in Washington DC, San Francisco, and Hong Kong, most recently as the group’s chief content officer. He is a weekly columnist for Bloomberg Green, where he writes on climate, energy, transportation and technology for 250,000. He is also a venture partner at Voyager Ventures, and advises early-stage climate companies and investors. He received a Master’s Degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in International Policy (Energy track) and International Economics, and an AB magna cum laude from Harvard University.
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor is Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at CTVC, a market intelligence firm focused on providing the clarity investors, corporates and other players need to more confidently operate in climate tech. Mark has been on the frontlines of cleantech since the true early days as one of the OG analysts at BNEF (pre-Bloomberg acquisition). Later in his 15-year tenure at BNEF he shifted focus to the business itself serving as Head of Product where he oversaw the company’s product strategy and development across various teams and platforms, including the Bloomberg terminal. Notably, he launched and hosted the Bloomberg Switched On podcast. Mark holds an MS in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and a BS in Microbiology from Brigham Young University. He lives in London with his family.
Sierra Peterson
Sierra Peterson has been structuring markets, financial products and investments for climate stabilization since 2005 and brings expertise in energy, policy and financing. A Kauffman Fellow, she has invested in more than 25 early-stage climate tech companies since 2015. Previously, Sierra led corporate development teams at financial technology companies responsible for $3B+ in solar and energy efficiency financing. Her experience in climate policy and market design includes the Obama White House Office of Energy and Climate Change and the International Energy Agency. Sierra is a graduate of Stanford and Harvard, where she researched lifecycle emissions analysis and carbon market design. Sierra lives in San Francisco with her husband and young daughter.
