A Guide to Financing the Future
A Guide to Financing the Future
Not just raising money. Raising the right kind of money.
Most hardtech and deep-tech founders learn the capital stack the hard way. Equity, debt, grants, and project finance all behave differently, want different proof points, and speak different languages. Pick the wrong one, and you can spend months chasing money that was never going to say yes.
This session is a practical guide to finding the right capital for where your company is today, then securing it quickly and competitively. We'll outline how the different types of funding line up against company stage, then discuss with founders who've raised capital across different structures, including asset-heavy startups building a more complex capital stack, about how it all comes together in practice.
You'll leave with a clearer sense of which capital fits your stage, what each type of investor is looking for, and how to talk about your company to fund the future faster and more easily.
Who should attend?
Hard-tech and deep-tech founders / CFOs / operators
Anyone who invests in Physical AI / hardtech
Anyone interested in how Physical AI companies are financed from ideation through to the public markets
Agenda
Arrival (2:30–3:00): Doors open.
The Talk (3:00–4:00) - Building Scalable Capital Stacks for Hardtech. With Bill Green (CAI), Aishwarya Dahanukar (Tangible) & Hampus Jakobsson (Pale Blue Dot).
Founder & Lender Panel (4:00–4:40) - Join i80 Group, Eternal Ag, Blykalla & Carbo Culture to hear about how they actually financed their companies.
Q&A (4:40–5:00)
Hosts
Bill Green, Founder & Managing Partner at Climate Adaptive Infrastructure. Thirty years across banking, private equity, and venture capital; previously Senior Managing Director at Macquarie and CEO of its renewable energy holdings.
Aishwarya Dahanukar, Co-Founder & CCO at Tangible. Twenty years in the debt capital markets across investment banking, rating agency, portfolio credit risk management and fintech credit/funding before co-founding Tangible, which helps hard-tech founders raise structured debt.
Hampus Jakobsson, Co-Founder & General Partner at Pale blue dot. Fifteen years of financing early-stage concepts and ideas.
Panelists
Taylor Byxbee, Vice President at i80 Group. Eight years across asset-based finance and structured credit; previously in ABS Finance, global markets credit, and market risk at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Henrietta Moon, CEO & Co-founder at Carbo Culture, building a rapidly scalable biochar carbon removal solution.
Mikael Fraenkel, CFO at Blykalla, a Swedish producer of advanced small modular reactors (SMRs).
Renji John, CEO & Co-founder at Eternal.ag, building autonomous robots that harvest every day.
Please note: This side event is part of The Drop in Malmö but is independently organized and run. Please direct any questions (or praise!) to the event organizers.
Acceptance to host or attend a side event does not guarantee a ticket to The Drop's main event on September 16. If you'd like to attend the main event, please apply for a ticket here.