It’s a challenge every startup faces: They’ve made a prototype and proven the thing works, but now have to sell the product and produce enough to get past the “valley of death” that kills so many companies.
“They are chicken and egg stuck,” Josh Felser, co-founder and managing partner of early-stage venture firm Climactic, told TechCrunch.
The hurdle is particularly high for companies making physical goods. Felser noticed it was a common occurrence among startups producing novel materials. Felser, who previously founded and invested in software startups, said the problem they faced seemed a bit unfair.
“Software companies sell at a negative margin all the time in the beginning, you know, Uber, Lyft, you can look at lots of different examples,” he said. “But for materials companies, they’re not allowed to do that. One of the questions I had is, ‘Why is that?’”
Felser found that unlike software companies, which can quickly add more capacity from cloud service providers, materials startups face a market skeptical of their ability to scale up production without a guaranteed customer.
Felser decided to give them one.
He doesn’t run a company with a big budget for clever materials, but he knows a few. And as a climate tech investor, he knows more than a few startups that could benefit from a well-known customer.
Felser has been quietly working on a new project, called Material Scale, that brings the two sides together using a hybrid debt-equity investment vehicle to give materials startups a boost, TechCrunch has learned. Material Scale will initially focus on climate tech startups in the apparel industry.
Material Scale is betting on startups with commercial-ready products that are ready to scale if a customer can purchase in bulk. Buyers will commit enough funds to cover the cost of the material at market price. Material Scale will fund the difference through a combination of loans and warrants in the startup.
“It’s really minimally dilutive,” Felser said.
Ralph Lauren is joining the platform as a buyer for the initial launch of Material Scale. Investor Structure Climate is joining Climactic as a general partner.
Money from purchase orders flows from the buyer through Material Scale to the startup. “In effect, we buy it and then simultaneously sell it,” Felser said.
The deals between Material Scale and the buyer and between Material Scale and the startup will be inked essentially at the same time.
“Once they sign the deals, this’ll be interesting because the value of the company has significantly changed because they’ve now got a buyer and they’ve got funding to achieve scale,” he said.
Material Scale hasn’t executed any deals yet; Felser said he has large apparel manufacturers interested in participating and a long roster of startups that could use the funding. “The startups all want it,” he said. “We have a big list of companies that are candidates that we’re talking with.”
The first investments will come out of a special purpose vehicle totaling about $11 million. Felser hopes to eventually branch out into other, similar markets like alternative fuels, eventually growing the Material Scale concept to nine figures.
He hopes other investors will steal his idea.
“We need more novel instruments like this to attack climate change,” he said. “We want to be nimble and be able to take advantage of opportunities when we see them and not just be doing the same old thing.”