Planetary Health

Why We Invested in Halcyon

Fighting climate change with data

Andrew Beebe | 04/18/2024

Climate change is the dominant challenge and opportunity of our time. A warmer world and extreme weather affect every industry and every sector, putting at risk our food, energy, infrastructure, and the stability of the modern world.

Decarbonization is the only way to solve it. And speed matters. That’s why I’m so excited to announce our investment in Halcyon. Obvious co-led their $10.8M seed round with Congruent Ventures, with participation from Overture Climate VC and others.

Halcyon is a technology company building a data platform to accelerate decarbonization. Decarbonization is the process of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and that process starts with data and analytics. Data reveals where to find the risks and opportunities in new renewable energy generation. It prepares regions and utility providers for future energy needs, and it forecasts future energy costs. With data, energy companies won’t see clean energy as a hope or a gamble, but as a strategic path to financial, operational, and market success.

But Halcyon has bigger plans than supporting only energy companies. Every company on the planet has an interest in decarbonization and minimizing climate risk, while also finding new opportunities in the transition. A large tech company wants to make sure its data centers have enough power to grow for decades. Agriculture companies need to confidently forecast future crop yields. Financial institutions need to protect their branches and their servers from extreme weather. And all of them want to know how to stay ahead of the competition and the changing climate.

Traditionally, these kinds of data insights have required enormous energy and time. Even in the era of big data, finding insights is still slow when millions of gigabytes of relevant data are stored in segregated files on fragmented servers. Discoverability is low and velocity is slow.

Halcyon’s data platform aims to fix this and support efficient and informed decision-making. In other words, it is working to make it simpler to get fast and reliable answers to complex questions.

Our investment in Halcyon is also an investment in Halcyon’s leadership team. Bruce Falck, Nat Bullard, Jonathan Lewis, and Alex Huras are an all-star AI team with decades of experience in machine learning, distributed systems, and data insights. We’re just as excited about Halcyon’s vision as we are the people building it.

We believe Halcyon will be a leader. The same way every company has become an “internet company,” every company will soon become a “climate company.” Running a successful company will require managing climate risks and finding opportunities to expand and grow sustainably. Platforms like Halcyon will help companies navigate this challenge. And—even more exciting—uncover new opportunities still hidden in the data.