Climate Tech 3.0: Why AI Is Now the Biggest Opportunity in the Built Environment
The Future We Build, A Brave Ideas network affiliated show featuring Alex Edds
In this episode of The Future We Build, host Alex Edds sits down with Rahul Parekh, Partner at 2150 to discuss what it actually takes to back the companies rebuilding our cities.
The Future We Build - Season 1, Episode 6
Rahul Parekh is a Partner at 2150, the venture capital fund created by and for one of the Nordics’ largest real estate investors (now under the Urban Partners brand) — a €20 billion platform that combines real estate capital with venture capital to accelerate the adoption of climate technologies in the built environment.
2150 has just closed its second fund at €210 million, bringing their total AUM to nearly half a billion euros, deployed into what they call Gigacorn companies — businesses with thepotential to remove gigatons of carbon while generating real financial returns. But the tension is real: venture capital needs returns in 7–10 years, real estate moves slowly, and procurement cycles are brutal.
So is VC even the right tool for this problem?
In this conversation, Rahul and Alex challenge both sides — why innovation adoption in real estate is still so broken, what it actually takes for cleantech founders to raise capital and break into the sector, and why the next wave of climate tech might look a lot more like AI than renewable energy.
Key timestamps:
[00:03:04] From Goldman Sachs to VC — Rahul’scareer path into climate investing
[00:06:08] The origin story of 2150 — how a realestate business decided to back innovation
[00:07:43] Thinking in cities, not buildings —the urban tech thesis
[00:09:13] The climate tech funding gap — whybuilt environment was being ignored in 2020
[00:10:56] Where 2150 invests — Series A &B, execution risk over technology risk
[00:12:39] Hardware vs. software — why you needboth to have real impact
[00:13:15] Portfolio construction — findingwinners across software, hardware, and the combination
[00:17:44] Ember: building the electric buscompany from the ground up in Scotland
[00:22:47] The building automation problem — whythe journey from £10m to £50m ARR is so hard
[00:24:13] How the VC-real estate relationshipactually works in practice — and where it doesn’t
[00:28:35] Lux Well: next-generation vacuuminsulated glass and what it takes to displace incumbents
[00:30:41] The funding gap for hardware founders— and the credit product that doesn’t exist yet
[00:35:08] Data centres, energy demand, and whythe grid won’t cope — from 2% to 25–30% of global electricity
[00:37:07] AI and scrap metal — how Meatal isunlocking primary-grade aluminium from secondary sources
[00:39:01] Circular economy in the builtenvironment — the promise of material passporting and the logistics problem
[00:42:07] Climate tech 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 — how themarket has changed three times in six years
[00:45:03] The direct energy market — cuttingout the middleman between generators and corporates
[00:46:29] If you could change one thing?
Organisations Mentioned
2150
Urban Partners
Goldman Sachs
Global Founders Capital
Ember (electric bus company, Scotland)
Lux Well (vacuum insulated glass)
Meatal (AI-powered secondary metals trading)
JLL
LaSalle Investment Management
Stagecoach / Megabus
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