‘Trailblazing Women in Climate’ panel inspires action in climate innovation

Climate investors Sophie Purdom and Mona Alsubaei spoke at Stanford Climate Week’s “Trailblazing Women in Climate” panel on Wednesday to discuss their career journeys, investment philosophies and efforts to accelerate sustainable innovation. The event drew an intimate audience of students and community members, many of whom engaged one-on-one with the speakers before and after the panel conversation. 

Purdom, now co-founder of Climate Tech VC (CTVC) and a Managing Partner at Planeteer Capital, an early-stage venture firm that invests in climate technology startups, talked about her path from entrepreneurship to venture capital. Purdom grew up in the United Kingdom before moving to Massachusetts, where she helped run her family’s e-commerce health supplement company — an experience that sparked her early interest in entrepreneurship. 

At Brown University, Purdom earned a degree in Environmental Science and Economics before co-founding Kula Bio, a carbon-negative fertilizer startup. She later began writing a newsletter that evolved into CTVC, a leading data and media platform tracking climate technology deals and trends. 

“I always thought of myself as a builder, not an investor,” Purdom said. “We started tracking every deal in climate tech and realized we could create a market intelligence platform that connected founders, investors and innovation.” 

Now at Planateer Capital, Purdom invests in early-stage climate ventures with a focus on business models that can scale efficiently and endure market cycles. 

“We don’t like science risk,” she said. “And I don’t enjoy business models that are binary. We want to back companies that both reduce risk and help their customers make more money.” 

Meanwhile, Alsubaei is now a partner at Transition VC, an early-stage venture fund that invests in companies driving the global sustainable energy transition. She grew up and attended university in Saudi Arabia, but her work in climate investing began when she received a scholarship to work as an economist at the United Nations in New York City. 

“That’s when my first thinking around climate was established,” she said. “Solving the climate crisis felt like a prerequisite — you need to address climate change to solve other [global] problems.” 

She described climate as an “anchoring” force that allowed her to dedicate her career to long-term impact. At Transition VC, Alsubaei and her team invest in software, hardware and deep tech ventures driving the global energy transition. 

“We take all sorts of risk profiles,” she said. “But what we don’t do is stack risks. Sometimes we’ll take a science risk if the market is obvious, but not if there’s policy or market uncertainty layered on top of it. We think a lot about whether a company is in a big and growing market … because in climate, that’s not always guaranteed.”  

When asked what they hope to see next in the climate investing landscape, both investors underscored the importance of “exits,” which are successful company sales of IOPs (input/output operations per second) that recycle capital back into the ecosystem. 

“Without exits, the flywheel stops turning,” Purdom said. “We need those success stories to keep founders motivated and investors engaged.” 

Alsubeai added that, despite market volatility, climate remains one of the most urgent and stable long-term opportunities.

 “Even if we’re the last fund standing in climate, we want to be that,” she said. “We know the end goal … we’re just back-solving to get there.”  

In the question and answer session that followed the panel discussion, Elana Mak ’26 said, “I’m really excited about the climate space, but something that I think about as a technical person is when we’re in this arena, how can we best communicate with stakeholders?” 

In response, Purdom emphasized the importance of optimism and clarity in communicating climate action. “Turns out fear doesn’t work so well most of the time,” she said. “A lot of climate messaging has been in the fear bucket. Instead, ask: ‘So what?’ What’s in it for your audience?” 

Purdom emphasized that effective climate leadership is built not on fear, but ambition and collaboration. “If you’re a climate founder, go forth and we will support you,” she said. 

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