2022 Atlas reflections 🌱 + Ending the year with a good news 🌏.
2022 Atlas reflections 🌱 + Ending the year with a good news 🌏.
We thought we were done with the pandemic, when the global geopolitical situation never been hotter! What a year! Check some of the positives with us >>>
Seasonal Greetings to you, friends of the Atlas…
It has been a great few days of chill time, hosting friends for Christmas dinner and reflecting on the wild year that was…
Looking back, how did we do in our predictions from last year?
Well, 2022 wasn’t easy to guess! New troubles emerged (war, bankruptcies, market pummelled, Elon gone wild) and lingering old ones (inflation, covid, and supply chain disruptions back in the news). We did however nail a couple of predictions:
Renewable energy companies have become the new emperors of SEA, where we observed a simple energy company buying the largest Telco in Thailand (AIS), and similar deals happening all around the region.
Crypto & NFT crashed, despite the supposed rising usage of cryptocurrencies instead of fiat during war times. The rug pull was to be expected as many had already made enough money. Glad we didn’t fall into the trap of creating an Atlas Coin and focused on investing in climate hardware & deeptech instead!
Recycling tech brought some new unicorns as BackMarket raised $510m for electronics recycling in Europe. Other mega unicorns in the US like Redwood materials have inspired us to lead investment in one company in the space.
AI has started eating most of the marketing jobs in 2022, starting with content creation and design, with that ChatGPT “publicly launching with 1m users in 5 days” that everyone is talking about.
Atlas Nano Fund successfully closed, after a difficult start (of wartime and stagflation), and after deploying capital into 7 new companies, we have already seen a Net Asset Value growth of our portfolio of 247% for the year-end!
Proudest Atlas Moments for 2022:
Last week, making our 2022 report and realizing our results in numbers: 247% NAV increase, 7 new investments, 6 new team members, 12 climate tech dinners, 15 new Youtube interviews, 6 meetups, AND 1 Singapore VC licence acquired! The team really pulled lots of weight to get Atlas Capital out of the ground last year. Thanks to everyone that have been part of making this happen.
Investing in our first deep-tech deals. With a thesis very far from mainstream, it was hard to explain what we were aiming to do at Atlas Capital. Fortunately, with the participation of new angel investors joining our fund, we got the chance to invest in Avalanche energy, a nuclear fusion micro powerplant startup based in Seattle, and from then, it has been much clearer for everyone to understand how we are materializing our book, The Adaptive Economy.
Structuring a stable team. If you know me, you should know how much I love the idea of remote work, but this really requires an immense amount of trust, accountability, and communication to have a team working across several continents. And I’m not sure we are the best at it yet, but so far, we did it! Having our first few full-time team members settle at Atlas Capital was a great step ahead for me after GetLinks. Moving forward we are looking to keep the team very lean while keeping delivering a Silicon Valley quality for our investments memos and research.
Kicking off Pala Ventures! As a sign of our commitment to support our US and EU portfolio companies to enter SEA and start creating that landing platform for them, we created our Atlas venture builder “Pala Ventures”, named after the ideal sustainable island Aldous Huxley described in his last utopia “The Island”. And with it, initiating the MVP testing of a matter that I cherish extremely, while some will say this is very bullish: Ocean-based carbon capture. Yes, that’s right, exploring venture building in SEA a company using algae and the unlimited water available in the ocean to absorb Co2 at scale. We do not want to tell you too much yet, but here is a picture of some of the first R&D.
Our Atlas climate tech dinners. From Davos to Bangkok, have made the buzz during the whole year. But my favorite one has been the December dinner at Four Seasons when we got the chance to connect some of our existing LPs with some of the largest conglomerates in the region on top of this our advisor Kookai was flying from Canada and attended too!
The last Atlas climate tech dinner of the year, December 2022.
Biggest Atlas Surprises in 2022:
When we got the chance to share the stage with World Bank and Wavemakers. Invited by Ren Hua (Thai Wah CEO), to share our vision and forecasts on the agritech sector in South East Asia, alongside the big boyz (or actually girls).
When we attended World Economy Forum… and met our friend Top Jirayut (Bitkup) at the craziest party there. Sorry we don’t have pictures. But if you want to see how Davos was, here is my recap video.
When President Macron encouraged Atlas Capital. Recommended by the French Ambassador, between french champions like Channel CEO and medals of the legion of honor, we got the chance to be invited to present Atlas Capital our french president
When I got invited back in Hong Kong… And refused to fly there (But attented virtually). After 2 years away from Hong Kong, being based there from 2017 to 2019, I had a chill thinking about going back. Being invited to speak at the first climate tech conference in Hong Kong made me feel still part of the tech ecosystem there and it was a great moment.
When our portfolio company, Zauben got interviewed by Robert Downey Junior (Yes, Iron Man!). Zauben's roadmap is to enter the living wall market in the world's biggest cities and turn buildings into breathing pieces of architecture to sequester carbon.
When we got invited on local TV (s) to share about Atlas Capital portfolio companies & our mandate as the first climate tech focused fund in SEA. Only 1 year after Atlas Capital launch, after starting our VC fund at the worst time, (Ukraine War, Crypto Crash, Inflation)… etc. Getting a little bit of love from the media (and already so many!) was not a bad way to end 2022. Thanks the press & everyone who helped us get the word out, in 2023 we will need 3X MORE!
Here is a little bonus:
It seems that our collective efforts to ban usage of coal and accelerate the transition to renewable energy have already helped correcting the climate change trajectory to better.. Check out this video to learn more.
Looking forward to 2023 indeed, embrace what we get half-right and adapt with agility to what we can't possibly predict. Let’s go!
Atlas is of the few funds which gambles on investors money with little skin in game and praying the investment works ! and lot of media and attention used to divert that. Biggest issue is the fund attracts small value investors who will or lose most of their money. Better to be a LP in a fund where >40% of the fund is from repeat investors or for a new fund the person running the fund has significant skin in game !