Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 In this episode, we are joined by Till Stenzel, Partner at SET Ventures, a European venture capital firm that has been in operation in 2007 which makes them one of the first climate VCs out there. They invest $2-$5M in rounds that range from $3-10M at the Series A/A+ stage. SET Ventures focuses on innovative business…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 This is a masterclass on investing in the future 🌍💰. Today, we're sitting down with Peter Sofer, Investment Partner at Clean Energy Ventures (CEV). Based in Austin, Texas, Peter tackles investing in the toughest-to-decarbonize sectors. CEV is known for backing companies that could be the only game in town for the lon…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Today’s episode is special to me! When I first learned about ClimateTech, I dreamed of building a Venture Studio in the space. Although I didn’t even know what a Venture Studio was back then, I quickly realized that founder-market fit is crucial for success. While I’m not there yet, I started my own recruitment firm …

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 We don’t always have climate philanthropic-learning orgs on, but when we do, it’s always a banger 💥 We're sitting down with Karl Burkart, the Co-Founder and Deputy Director of One Earth. One Earth funds advanced scientific research and technology applications to address the climate crisis at scale across three pillar…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 This is a special breakdown of Ample’s strategic playbook and how you can apply it to your hardware climate startup. The full version of this episode is only available to our paid subscribers — soo… if you’re looking for a reason to become a paid sub… here is your chance 😉 Become a paid subscriber today by clicking h…

The 8th edition of the Venice Immersive 2024 will be kicking off on August 28th, which will be featuring over 28 hours of immersive storytelling and immersive art content across over 70 different projects. This year there area a lot more immersive installations representing over a third out of the total number of on-site projects (18 out of the 52)…

The Night Under Lights Presents: The Seasons at the Moon Pool (replayable VRChat link and video) shown during Raindance Immersive was one of the most immersive music experiences I've ever had in VR so far. It was so awe-inspiring and incredible to see 3 DJ / VJ sets using the SNR Labs particle-screen version of their holographic Apple Global Illumi…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Today, our guest is John de Souza. Co-founder of Ample Inc. A startup betting that battery swapping is the future. If you're at all like me, you're thinking that sounds bat shit crazy. Well, listen to today's episode, and you'll realize it's the opposite. It's the only logical conclusion to EVs. We can't gloss over t…

https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/4hftjzpfz2suud5m/drupaleasy-podcast-s17e2-janez-urevc.mp3 We talk with Janez Urevc from Tag1 Consulting about Gander, an open-source automated performance testing framework. URLs mentioned Gander (includes many helpful links!) 40-minute video presentation introducing Gander (including a demo) Drupal.org docs page for…

SoftlySteph's The Friction of a Modulated Soul took home the Best Dance Experience at Raindance Immersive in a groundbreaking performance that tells the "story about the different cages that bind us from our authentic truth." It's a piece that completely blew me away with it's technological innovations, her fluid and emotionally-driven dance, a mov…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Drew D’Alelio is an Investor at Connecticut Innovations, the government investing arm of the state of Connecticut, who helps manage and co-founded the state’s $100M climate tech fund. He plays a pivotal role in managing their $100M Climate Tech fund with a triple bottom line of returns, climate mitigation and adaptat…

There was a new holographic shader developed by members of SNR Labs group on VRChat that completely blew me away in how it was used in a couple of performances at Raindance Immersive. It's like a new form of volumetric capture that also has lighting effects, and can be used in translating 2D images into 3D or capturing low-res 3D objects into a sor…

Shadow Canyon: A Puppeteer's Tale is a unique blend of VRChat Worldbuilding by nprowler, immersive dance performances by students of the VR Dance Academy founded by Dust Bunny, and then improv actors and immersive theatre staging led by Mycana. Overall, it was such a unique blend of different disciplines that the curators of Raindance Immersive awa…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Woo Hoo! Episode #200 🎉🎉🎉 We are thrilled to release our 200th episode with the one and only Moji Karimi. Moji is a co-founder of Cemvita, the biotech powerhouse that has also birthed GoldH2 and Endolith (now individual companies). This is the free version of the episode. To get the full thing, go to our Substack and…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Vivin Hegde is a visionary in the built environment space — from leading innovation efforts at Hilti to co-founding Zacua Ventures, Vivin is on a mission to redefine how we think about construction and infrastructure. In this episode, he dives deep into the challenges and opportunities of investing in the built envir…

FlowersRite (花之祭P) is a music producer, 3D artist, cosplayer, and VRChat world builder who won the Best Music Experience at Raindance Immersive 2024 with her experience called Children of the Seed. Within a couple of days of discovering VR in 2019, she had bought a PC, HTC Vive, and Vive Trackers to do full-body tracking, and has slowly been transi…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Today, we are speaking with Kieran White. Co-Founder of Curo. At Curo they help EV Fleet owners secure reliable charging without the need to build their own infrastructure. This has the double benefit of allowing existing infrastructure owners to maximize their assets. Today’s call is super fun. We discuss: How he hu…

Medra is the CEO and founder of the Creator Jam, which is a non-profit that's been consistently organizing weekly and monthly collaborative-building events within the social VR platform of Resonite (and originally within Neos VR) since June 2, 2019. Resonite's technological architecture allows for the rendering and editing of content in real-time i…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Hey everyone! Today’s episode is a special issue. We are unpacking Susan Su’s recent article “What a second Trump presidency would mean for climate investing”. She originally posted this on her Substack, Climate Money but we wanted to unpack it for those who prefer to learn by audio. The first ~20 minutes of today’s …

https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/acbnqgqgbtj5t3qp/drupaleasy-podcast-s17e1-jamie-abrahams.mp3 We talk with Jamie Abrahams from FreelyGive about the new AI module and what it means for the future of AI modules in the Drupal ecosystem. URLs mentioned The new AI module Introductory video on the new AI module Press release announcing AI module Detailed …

The VRChat world Suku took home the Best Art World prize at Raindance Immersive 2024, and it's by Durk van der Meer who is a freelance digital artist, character artist, and VR world builder based in Curaçao. Suku blends together elements of Caribbean culture and geography with Dutch colonial architecture combined with a sort of psychedelic Studio G…

K. Guillory (aka Aemeth) has been writing The Metaculture online magazine since August 13, 2021 with over 70 articles covering the latest trends in arts and culture on social VR platforms such as VRChat. She focuses primarily on the live music and performance scenes, but also has been tracking the historical evolution of the underground clubbing sc…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Edo is a rockstar individual — from tackling the lack of green employer incentive problem to building climate tech communities across the USA, Edo joins us to share his journey from working in sustainability at Apple to founding Elements World, making it possible for employers to hit their sustainability targets thro…

Doug North Cook is the CEO and Creative Director for Creature, which is both an immersive game studio and label announced a year ago that's representing 10 different XR studios and 16 projects slated as far out as 2027. Creature had four different projects with announcements as a part of the UploadVR Summers Showcase 2024 on June 26th that included…

Thrasher is a really compelling VR game with a very satisfying and magical core game mechanic inspired by ribbon dancing. It's the latest VR game from Brian Gibson, who designed the art and music for the VR rhythm game Thumper, as he teamed up with former Harmonix co-worker Mike Mandel via Puddle Studio. Thrasher was also partially inspired by the …

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Today we speak with Ravi Kurani, CEO and Founder of Sutro (water IoT device company -- exited to Sani Marc). Aaand the creator and host of Liquid Assets, a Podcast interviewing the leading voices in WaterTech. Between Ravi's background as a founder in the water, his familiarity with the water ecosystem, and now his o…

Laser Dance is a mixed reality game by solo XR game developer Thomas van Bouwel, who previously released minimalist puzzle game called Cubism. I had a chance to try out Laser Dance through Raindance Immersive, and it's one of those types of games that I think will really help define some of the key affordances of successful mixed reality games that…

Madame Kana is a French, transgender woman and VReporter who has been publishing a new documentary about VRChat every 2-3 weeks for the past year on her YouTube channel, and she won the Discovery Award this year at Raindance Immersive 2024 for her short film called New Eden Evergarden; Behind the Magic. She published a 39-minute documentary about l…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Today, we are talking to Matthias Muehlbauer of OnePointFive. We have the pleasure of covering one of our good friends, Matthias Muehlbauer at the powerhouse firm OnePointFive. Matthias is a Founding Partner at the firm, where their activities range across two operations: **They provide diligence and climate advisory…

BabyBonito is an artist, avatar creator and worldbuilder within VRChat who participant different VRChat communities including a creative collective in VR called GlitchesVR, which has a substack that covers the latest in virtual culture. As a classically trained artist Bonito first got into VR through the process of creating her own avatars, which h…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Dimitry Gershenson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Enduring Planet. A fractional CFO and Non-Dilutive Funding service for ClimateTech Entrepreneurs. As for funding, they provide working capital for founders who have landed grants or who have government contracts. It's great to see more Climate-Specific service providers…

Ariel Emerald is a VR filmmaker who has had a short film titled Ulterior Motives and music video screen titled Like Crazy at Raindance Immersive for the past two years. Before getting into social VR, she suffered from social anxiety and isolation, and didn't have the resources to pursue a career in film. But getting into virtual reality via VRChat …

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 In our third installment of sustainable building materials, we’re taking another look at lumber. We’ve already called reclaimed lumber “the superpower building material you’ve never heard of”. As a refresher, lumber, processed wood from trees, is a versatile and widely used building material known for its strength, d…

TFMJonny is a full-time VTuber content creator with more than a million subscribers on YouTube and TikTok, but also does Twtich livestreams, releases music on Spotify, and has a background in acting, voices acting, and improv (more links are here on his Linktree). It's a journey that started with live singing within The Great Pug in VRChat, and the…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Reclaimed lumber is the superpower building material you’ve never heard of (because we’re all up to date on our Rolodex of sustainable building materials, right?). Lumber, processed wood from trees, is a versatile and widely used building material known for its strength, durability, and workability. So why isn’t ther…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Mycelium is an emerging decarbonized building material due to its sustainability, biodegradability, and strength. It is cultivated by growing fungal networks, also known as mushrooms. Mycelium-based products can be used for insulation, bricks, and packaging. Today, we have a ClimateTech Entrepreneur making waves with…

Starheart is a Musician, Composer, Filmmaker, and VTuber who has been doing live performances in VR over the past couple of years. She started making music videos on Halloween of 2022, and realized that she needed a persistent avatar. VR had already been creating a safe space for her to anonymously experiment with and discover her identity as a tra…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Ashwin Salvi is the Co-Founder and COO of AtmosZero. They create electrified boilers to replace traditional fossil-fuel-burning boilers in industrial settings. Steam touches a huge amount of products that we, as consumers, use every day, and AtmosZero is helping decarbonize that. Today, Ashwin shares his story, and w…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Today, we are talking to Toby Ferenczi from Granular Energy. In this electrifying (ha!) episode, we finally tracked down the elusive Toby Ferenczi, a man who juggles startups like they're hot potatoes. ⚡️ Toby educates us about the world of electricity transparency and trading. Did you know you can trade electricity …

Cosm is a front-facing, 180-degree, 87-foot diameter, 8K+ LED dome screen that can seat up to 1500 people. Their first location is opening in Los Angeles this weekend showing UFC 303, which is produced by their Cosm Immersive division (formerly LiveLikeVR) focusing on live sporting events, music, entertainment. They also have a Cosm Studios divisio…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Kevin Noertker is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ampaire, a developer of Hybrid Aviation Propulsion Systems to Decarbonize Air Travel Today. Currently they are scaling up their tech. Their tech is proven to reduce fuel usage by about 50% for small aircrafts (anything with a propeller). Today, Kevin shares his story and we…

Ru is a transgender woman who works as a hospice nurse in Ohio, and since 2018 has been involved as an immersive artists, virtual DJ, and event producer holding weekly events in her psychedelic space called Kaleidosky, which is nominated for Best Music Experience for Raindance Immersive 2024. I had a chance to get a tour of her Kaleidosky 3.0 event…

The Troll Project was created by Ruth Diaz, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology and focuses on XR community design, in order to explore the root causes of trolling, but also tackling the issue head on within social VR spaces with some community-driven solutions that she has experimented with. She's recorded a number of ethnographic interview…

Today Niantic's 8th Wall is announcing Niantic Studio, which is "a new visual interface for Niantic 8th Wall developers that offers an entirely new way to build immersive 3D and XR experiences." It's essentially a web-based game engine using three.js that can render WebXR experiences and starts to integrate a few of Niantic's Lightship APIs, but wi…

YouTuber Brad Lynch (aka SadlyItsBradley) has completely replaced all of his computer screens with an Apple Vision Pro, even going as far as getting a headless Mac Book Pro that does not even have a screen. He's been using the Apple Vision Pro for around 8 hours a day since launch, and I wanted to get a sense of how he's been using it. It turns out…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Chad Mason is the CEO and Founder of Advanced Ionics, a company that has designed a revolutionary electrolyzer. They did this by designing their technology from scratch. They are currently scaling up this innovative technology and plan to sell these units, known as stacks, either directly or through licensing agreeme…

On June 12, 2024, VRChat announced they were laying off 30% of their staff, and they posted a letter to all employees sent from CEO Graham Gaylor that said, "We’re reducing the size of our team by around 30% and saying goodbye to many talented team members in the process. This is the hardest change we’ve had to make at VRChat, and Jesse and I take …

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Jesse Henry is the CEO and Founder of Heartland Industries, a company that produces drop-in pellets made of hemp fiber. These pellets are used as an additive to plastics. They reduce the weight and cost of the products, improve strength, and lower scope 3 emissions. It's a quadruple-benefit product. Today, Jesse tell…

Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬 Rahul broke down the nitty-gritty of how 2150 built (no pun intended) a leading ClimateTech VC fund focused on decarbonizing the built environment. We talked investing, fund modeling, learning from general VC, FinTech in ClimateTech, & more. This was a VC-fundamental extraordinaire, and super informative for anyone l…

Raindance Immersive 2024 opened last weekend in VRChat, and will run for the next four weekends featuring the latest innovations of virtual culture with 77% of experiences happening on social VR platforms and 69% that feature VRChat. I spoke at length with co-curators Mária Rakušanová and Joe Hunting about each of the 36 experiences that span nine …