Devrim Celal– Kraken In this episode of Leaders in Cleantech, David Hunt is joined once again by Devrim Celal, Chief Flexibility & Marketing Officer at Kraken, nearly six years after their first conversation in 2019—back when Devrim was CEO of Upside Energy. Since then, Upside Energy was acquired by Octopus Energy and evolved into Kraken, now one of the world’s leading energy technology platforms, serving tens of millions of customers and optimising flexible power at global scale. Rathe...

In this episode of Leaders in Cleantech, I speak with Juergen Mayerhofer, CEO and co-founder of enspired, the Vienna-based company using fully automated, AI-driven trading to optimise flexible power assets – especially grid-scale batteries – across multiple European markets. Juergen shares how he stumbled into energy via Austrian gas market liberalisation, fell in love with physical energy systems, and eventually founded enspired in early 2020 with the simple but powerful idea that flexibili...

In this episode I’m joined by Gregory Dewerpe, Founder of NOA (formerly A/O), to cut through the noise on climate investing. We talk about the shift from abundance to discipline, why Europe and the US are now playing different games, and how AI will matter in the physical world—grids, buildings, materials—rather than the hype layer. Candid, practical, and economics-first: adoption wins when solutions are cheaper, smarter, and scale. What we cover Why A/O became NOA: moving from “propte...

About Liliane Ableitner: Liliane is the co-founder and CEO of the climate tech startup exnaton. In 2019, she graduated with a PhD in information systems from one of Europe’s most renowned universities ETH Zurich. In 2020, she co-founded a startup with her two fellow PhD colleagues and was listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for young entrepreneurs. Until today, the startup has received Venture Capital from Silicon Valley based True Ventures, Germany’s largest VC GFC, and the Zurich climate ...

Join David Hunt, host of the Leaders in Cleantech podcast, as he delves into the future of battery storage with Andrew Gilligan, Senior Director of Global Markets and Development at Fluence. In this episode, Andrew shares his journey from the solar industry to joining Fluence, insights about global storage markets, and the evolving supply chains required to support large-scale battery deployments. They discuss the economic and regulatory factors driving storage adoption, particularly in the U...

In this episode of Leaders in Cleantech, I speak with Joachim Lohse, CEO and co-founder of Ampcontrol, about his journey from writing LinkedIn blog posts as a young consultant to founding one of Europe’s most innovative smart charging software companies. We discuss the technical and leadership challenges of scaling a company at the heart of the EV transition, and what it really takes to support the electrification of critical infrastructure like logistics fleets, ports, and buses. Ampcontrol ...

Hydrogen has for decades been talked about as the fuel of the future, the economics, among other things stand it’s way, producing cheap hydrogen isn’t easy, but what if nature has already done the hard work for us? In this episode of Leaders in Cleantech, I speak with Emmanuel Masini, founder and CEO of Mantle8, a pioneering natural hydrogen exploration company. We dive into Emmanuel’s journey from geologist to entrepreneur, why natural hydrogen could be a game-changing addition to the energy...

Rewiring Energy: Disruption, Transparency, and Scaling with Purpose – Joe McDonald, TEM In this energised episode, David Hunt is joined by Joe McDonald, Co-founder and CEO of TEM – a fast-scaling UK energytech startup reshaping how energy transactions are done. From his early days at LimeJump and the acquisition by Shell, to co-founding TEM and challenging the very core of how electricity is bought, sold, and valued – Joe shares a story of timing, execution, and bold ambition. Joe and David d...

🎧 Episode and guest overview In this episode of Leaders in Cleantech, David Hunt is joined by Danijel Visevic, Managing Partner of World Fund, Europe’s largest climate tech VC. Danijel shares his personal and professional journey — from journalism and politics to launching a €300M venture fund dedicated to decarbonisation. They explore the challenges of scaling deep tech and hardware-centric startups, the urgent funding gaps at Series B, and how Europe risks losing its most promising IP to th...

What’s it all about? In this episode, I’m joined by Monica Collings—former CEO of Vattenfall UK and ESB Energy, and now a board chair, non-exec, and strategic advisor across the energy transition space. We discuss her journey from executive leadership to a portfolio career, lessons from leading through the energy crisis, building resilient cultures in volatile times, and why diversity, inclusion, and human-centred leadership are critical to the future of cleantech and utilities. A thoughtful,...

🎙 Episode 150 – Jan Lozek, Managing Director & Founder, Future Energy Ventures In this milestone episode of Leaders in Cleantech, David Hunt is joined by Jan Lozek, a veteran investor and the founder of Future Energy Ventures, one of Europe’s largest and most influential climate tech VCs. Together, they explore the evolution of cleantech investment, the challenges and opportunities facing founders today, and why Europe is uniquely positioned to lead the energy transition—despite global he...

What’s it all about?Energy Storage, to infinity and beyond! How do you forecast and predict revenues from your energy storage assets, even if not built yet? Modo have a range of solutions to help asset owners, developers and investors to answer these questions. We also dive into the challenges and experiences of high growth, from pivoting and fundraising to new market entry and building and retaining high performing teams.About Quentin Scrimshire:Quentin ‘Q’ Scrimshire has over a decade...

What’s it all about?Building cleantech start-ups, at scale. It can be confusing, the world of Incubators, accelerators and venture builders, also known as start-up studios. Who does what, how and why? In this episode we clarify some of those things, but discuss so much more about the why and how of new cleantech venture builder Big Circle Ventures, with founder CEO Joost Kruytzer. Joost is a very experienced venture builder, recently moving from healthtech to cleantech following a passion to ...

What’s it all about?Investing in Hardtech! Yes, it’s true, some VC’s do invest in hardtech/deeptech, knowing the specific challenges of supporting companies of this nature to scale. This week I speak with Malin Carlstrom of Danish VC Climentum Capital about scaling deeptech, the importance of team, the usefulness (and otherwise) of advisors and NED’s, and the ‘perfect storm’ giving optimism about the chances for climatetech to have its’ day.About Malin Carlstrom:Malin has spent the last two d...

What’s it all about?Clean, efficient, reliable, electric public transport. After traveling by Bus and Coach across five continents, Keith Bradbury and Co-Founder Pierce Glennie made the switch from Fintech to Cleantech, with a solution to the cost, pollution and unreliability and hassle of public transport. Ember was born, you can hear the story from inception to recent A-round fundraise, and plans for the future. Enjoy the episode.About Keith Bradbury:Deep generalist. Hopeful sceptical empir...

What’s it all about?Solar, and moving from corporate life to a start up. I first met my guest today, Joachim Rupp at a start-up within a corporate, building Viessmann’s Photovoltaic business, before that he’d been in some big corporate roles, more recently we helped him secure the CEO role at a Lithuanian solar scale-up, Detra Solar. We talk solar evolution and trends, but also the challenges and rewards of a career transition. Enjoy the episode.Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction and Background...

What’s it all about?Batteries. More specifically, software enabled batteries helping to make Electric vehicles, consumer electronics, and wearables, more efficient, providing better customer experiences. I speak to another start-up spun out of Imperial College London, with a novel and proven set of products and technologies moving forward the transition towards better, longer lasting and faster charging vehicles and devices. A great spin-out journey. I hope you enjoy the episode.Chapters:00:0...

In start-up world everyone wants to know about the deals. Who raised what, which VC's are spending some of that 'dry powder' all these things are important, but looking at the bigger trends is perhaps more useful.In this Bitesize episode I speak with Federico Cristoforoni of Net Zero Insights about some of the trends is their Q! Quarterly Report. We discuss some of the key themes, but you can access the full report here.Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction to Federico00:01:40 - State of the Indus...

What’s it all about?Solar. Another part of the value-chain explored by this BNEF award-winning, Mega-funding round landing solar SaaS start-up/scale-up. We speak with founder and CEO David Trainavvicius about the journey so far.About David Trainavicius:David is the Founder and CEO of PVcase. He has been involved with a wide variety of solar projects since 2009, gaining expertise in the European solar power market and regulations. He has an in-depth knowledge of solar energy systems, including...

What’s it all about?Solar. But not rooftops this time, the other end of the value-chain. Wafers are not only a large part of the cost of solar modules, producing them is also very energy intensive, and therefore carbon emitting. Through innovation in this part of the process Nexwafe hope to make the manufacture of solar modules, cheaper, cleaner, and to bring manufacturing at scale to Europe, North America, and India, and beyond. We need how much solar? We’re heading to Terawatt territory. We...