Third Sphere

Nancy Pfund is the Founder and Managing Partner of DBL Partners, a firm that demonstrates how venture capital can deliver both top-tier returns and positive social and environmental impact. She has backed transformative companies including Tesla, SolarCity, SpaceX, and Pandora. We will talk with her about the early DBL decisions and investments that have had reverberating impact. And how to make most of a bubble! She’s successfully navigated the dotcom and both climate tech bubbles. Also on stage with us October 8th: Ramez Naam called the exponential price decline of solar in Scientific American in 2011. Thirteen years at Microsoft before that, and the Nexus trilogy since. He will talk about what compounding technology curves mean for the companies being built right now. Both consistently live in the future you’ll find on our Expo floor. Link in comments.

Sention is heading to San Francisco for SF Tech Week! 🇺🇸   We will be at the Hard Tech Expo hosted by Third Sphere on 8 October - and we'll have our Discovery unit on the floor. A tabletop, non-contact ultrasound that sees inside a sealed battery cell without opening it. You can watch it scan live.   The event brings together hardware founders, investors and builders from across the climate tech ecosystem - alongside some brilliant companies and speakers. If you're in SF, come touch the future 👋 #SFTechWeek #HardTech #BatteryTech #CleanEnergy https://lnkd.in/ewpUvdrj

Two of the guests at our Expo on October 8 are robots. Robot.com is bringing R-Noid, its humanoid, and R-dog, its quadruped. They will not be parked at a booth. They join the flow of the event, moving across the floor alongside everyone else. Most people have only seen a humanoid or quadruped robot in a video. Join us to meet them in action. Partiful link in the comments.

Climate capital now sits at the centre of the global economic transition. Where it goes, on what terms, and whose future it enables are questions confronting governments, businesses, and the third sector. As Chief Executive Officer of the University of Oxford Climate Alumni Network (OxCAN), it will be both an honour and a privilege to host this important conversation during Climate Week NYC 2026 organized by Climate Group, continuing OxCAN’s tradition of convening in New York the pathbreaking conversations that have long defined the University of Oxford’s engagement with the great questions of our time. This year, in partnership with The New York Climate Exchange and Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association - EMEA, we turn our attention to "Capital at the Crossroads: Balancing Impact, Innovation and Sustainable Growth". Global capital is abundant in aggregate. Its architecture, however, too often prevents it from reaching the technologies, infrastructure, enterprises and communities capable of delivering the greatest climate value. The problem lies in the persistent misalignment between capital and consequence: between the places where finance accumulates and those where climate risk, technological possibility and developmental need converge. Our discussion will examine how climate capital can be structured to deliver near-term impact, accelerate emerging technologies, strengthen enabling infrastructure, and sustain the ecosystems upon which durable innovation depends. We will also confront the harder questions of risk, time horizon and institutional design that determine which ideas reach scale, which markets remain underserved, and who participates in the emerging climate economy. Dr M Sanjayan, Chief Executive Officer of The New York Climate Exchange, will deliver the keynote address. The panel will bring together Professor Rym Ayadi, Founder and President of EMEA; Michelle Haigh Osorio, Vice President of NY Green Bank; Shaun Abrahamson, Managing Partner of Third Sphere; and Rachel Williams, Investor at Lowercarbon Capital. James Sutherland, OxCAN’s Director of North America, will moderate the discussion, and I shall offer the opening remarks. Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2026 Time: 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. Location: Conference Room, Moody’s, 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich Street, Lower Manhattan, New York, NY 10007 If you are in New York, please consider joining us for what promises to be a searching and consequential conversation at #ClimateWeekNYC. There will be light refreshments following the event. Register here: https://luma.com/800bsuqp Heidi Johansen-Berg Holly Peterson Charlotte Richards Jo Ann Corey Hilary Haworth Helene Hetrick Adaudo Anyiam-Osigwe

Climate capital now sits at the centre of the global economic transition. Where it goes, on what terms, and whose future it enables are questions confronting governments, businesses, and the third sector. As Chief Executive Officer of the University of Oxford Climate Alumni Network (OxCAN), it will be both an honour and a privilege to host this important conversation during Climate Week NYC 2026 organized by Climate Group, continuing OxCAN’s tradition of convening in New York the pathbreaking conversations that have long defined the University of Oxford’s engagement with the great questions of our time. This year, in partnership with The New York Climate Exchange and Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association - EMEA, we turn our attention to "Capital at the Crossroads: Balancing Impact, Innovation and Sustainable Growth". Global capital is abundant in aggregate. Its architecture, however, too often prevents it from reaching the technologies, infrastructure, enterprises and communities capable of delivering the greatest climate value. The problem lies in the persistent misalignment between capital and consequence: between the places where finance accumulates and those where climate risk, technological possibility and developmental need converge. Our discussion will examine how climate capital can be structured to deliver near-term impact, accelerate emerging technologies, strengthen enabling infrastructure, and sustain the ecosystems upon which durable innovation depends. We will also confront the harder questions of risk, time horizon and institutional design that determine which ideas reach scale, which markets remain underserved, and who participates in the emerging climate economy. Dr M Sanjayan, Chief Executive Officer of The New York Climate Exchange, will deliver the keynote address. The panel will bring together Professor Rym Ayadi, Founder and President of EMEA; Michelle Haigh Osorio, Vice President of NY Green Bank; Shaun Abrahamson, Managing Partner of Third Sphere; and Rachel Williams, Investor at Lowercarbon Capital. James Sutherland, OxCAN’s Director of North America, will moderate the discussion, and I shall offer the opening remarks. Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2026 Time: 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. Location: Conference Room, Moody’s, 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich Street, Lower Manhattan, New York, NY 10007 If you are in New York, please consider joining us for what promises to be a searching and consequential conversation at #ClimateWeekNYC. There will be light refreshments following the event. Register here: https://luma.com/800bsuqp Heidi Johansen-Berg Holly Peterson Charlotte Richards Jo Ann Corey Hilary Haworth Helene Hetrick Adaudo Anyiam-Osigwe

When design production gets 10x cheaper, where does that saving actually go? To the renter? The developer? The land? Most of the industry is still debating whether AI replaces architects. We think that's the wrong question. The more consequential one is what happens to the cost savings when a major piece of the development process gets fast and cheap, and who actually benefits. Our CEO Sandeep Ahuja and Shaun Abrahamson, co-founder and managing partner at Third Sphere, wrote this piece together to answer just that. #Architecture #AI #BuiltEnvironment

Nevoya, an electric-trucking startup in Third Sphere's portfolio, secured 20 vehicle leases before it even raised a pre-seed round. That's what Third Sphere calls "speedstrapping" — reaching early revenue and securing non-dilutive capital (leases, credit facilities, project finance) before raising large venture equity. It's one of the ideas featured in a new Stanford University Graduate School of Business case study on the firm, one of the most thorough outside looks at how a climate-focused VC actually operates. Also worth noting: Stonly Blue, Third Sphere's co-founder, was recently named Chair of ICM's Institute Board — the research and field-building arm of our network. Congrats to him and the whole Third Sphere team. #VentureCapital #ImpactInvesting