May 8–12: The Meteorical Week
🔥 Monday 🔥
🌏 Monday, was the first-ever 52 degrees recorded in a heatwave in SEA. And that day, alongside 170+ investors interested to fund a new era in South East Asia, we wrote history by gathering nearly $1b in the room, from corporate venture capitals, family offices, and angel investors money around the theme of « Decarbonizing Cities », for this first edition of CLIMATE TECH DAY!
And this was just Monday or Tuesday? Wednesday? Wait for it.
🛫 Tuesday 🛫
Tuesday was doing a last catchup with our advisor Darryl about how to take the Coalition to the next level. We talked about how homegrown proteins could have an interesting solution for shorter & more resilient food cycles, inspired by my former workmate’s company [company website]. After this, I had a Champaign at my co-founder’s house to celebrate the success of the event and catch up. Then it was already time for me to jump on my 20th plane to New York.
🏬 Wednesday 🏬
Arriving in New York City at 6 pm, I had 1 hour to check in at my hotel and then go for our first Atlas portfolio company visit. Went to Occulus at the World Trade Center to meet Devin, CEO of The Canvas, our retail sustainability fashion company that is helping upcycling brands to have physical shops in the US. The cocktail Dinner was a great occasion to connect Devin with Ashley, an entrepreneur in a sustainable fashion that got Ashton Kutcher as an investor and now looking to expand to Paris. At 10 pm I crashed and my jet lag made me sleep in the taxi on the way back to my hotel.
🌳Thursday 🌳
Accidentally woke up at 4 am, cleaned a couple of emails, followed up with some of the great folks I had met Monday & other work backlogs. At 9 am I decided to start the day with Central Park and do some sport. Realized this park was really something I needed back in Bangkok: a big green space with mellow temperatures & clean air… made me think that it’s maybe time to move to NYC… at least for the summer! Afternoon met with Calum, the bother of one of my investors and we had a deep discussion about how the AI inflection point this year could be as impactful as the introduction of steam engines in the XIXs. Food for thoughts… for GetLinks…
Followed up by visiting my bro Rudy at his place, dinner & drinks with our Atlas advisor Jennifer Xu which I met the day of my birthday in 2016 for 500 startups demo day (crazy story).
🗽Friday 🗽
Spent the morning in Central Park again, but this time walked around while syncing up with my partner Kookai on what needed to be done next, and called a few investors to follow up. What better way to start the day really, than walking in a park and closing deals man? Started to really be envious of people actually living here. Anyway, I had to visit this event called Single Family Office with Jennifer. A protest got me to wait for 1.5h in my Uber and arrived late at the conference, but at least I got the chance to sit down with our advisor and think about who should be the next persons from her network I should meet while here. After this went to ruin the Patagonia store after realizing this was the only place on earth actually repairing any items you would buy from them! Followed by dinner with our APAC climate tech fellows from Brinc, exchanging insights about the carbon capture space. Crashed at 10 pm while trying to shoot that damn thank you email to Monday attendees.
☄️Saturday ☄️
Woke up at 6 am (not bad! Got that sleep back on track!) to press that send button on the thank you email. Worked on all these events follow ups items & the logistics of my next 7 days (booking San Francisco flights / Hotels etc)… to then be really prepared to meet Seth Godin!! 10:30 I met him at Plantshed, a small cafe/plant boutique… he started with a question: what is your full story? I told him my normal stuff from France to Asia to starting my own company to then the accident doing Spearfishing. He resonated as he Al’s most drowned 3 months ago… I felt that this was going to be a good meeting.
Saturday afternoon, I then flew to Miami to visit another of our portfolio companies. And that’s when the real stuff got started…
