Startup Program

Veery Maxwell is a partner and co-head of Galvanize Climate Solution's Innovation+Expansion investment strategy. She has spent her career focused on climate change, and is a deep believer in the virtuous cycle of markets, technology, and policy reinforcing each other to drive decarbonization. Previously, Veery was a founding partner at Ajax Investment Strategies, where she invested in technology companies solving climate change. She currently sits on the boards of Alcemy, Regrow Ag, Sunfolding, The Routing Company, Trace Genomics, and Voltus. Additionally, she serves on the nonprofit boards of Clean Energy for America and CREO Syndicate.Prior to co-founding Ajax, Veery was a director at Energy Innovation managing a large climate philanthropy portfolio focused on supporting regulatory interventions to drive emissions out of the power, transport, and industrial sectors. Veery previously worked at Climateworks Foundation and The Nature Conservancy.Veery earned a J.D. degree with honors from UC Hastings School of the Law, and a B.A. degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a double major in finance and international business. Veery lives in Marin with her husband, daughter, and Norwich terrier.

Taj Ahmad Eldridge is a 25+ year investment professional whose career has included high level executive roles in banking, asset management, alternative investments, and entrepreneurship. 

Taj serves as Managing  Director of Climate Innovations at Jobs For The Futures (JFF) where he’s leads a cross collaborative team focusing on the intersection of climate and workforce. The first project under Climate Innovations is the $25M 5 year project CREST funded by the Ares Managemrnt Foundation.

As a cofounder of Include Venture Partners , Taj focused on investing in diverse founders and fund managers who want to create innovative ecosystems in their areas - as geographic diversity is just as important as racial and gender diversity. Previously Taj served as Senior Director of Investments at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), Taj has built a long standing career with expertise in the fields of fintech, media, energy, transportation, and the circular economy. 

At LACI, Taj helped establish both the LACI Impact Fund I (LIF I) and the LACI Debt Fund to allow cleantech companies to grow with diverse capital. These funds utilize an equity impact lens to encourage invested companies to have environmental, economic, and social impact - particularly on increasing the number of underrepresented voices in the cleantech industry. In addition, Taj created programs such as LACI Investor Talks (LIT), the LACI Investor in Residence program, and the Player to CEO Athlete-Investor Impact Summit Series with JP Morgan Chase. Taj has been named one of the 53 Investors to Watch in 2021 by Pitchbook & 101 Black Titans in Tech while nurturing and building a team of investment activists.

Prior to LACI, Taj was the Director for the Incubator at the University of California in Riverside, California. During his tenure as Director, Taj’s team brought a $10M venture fund (Highlander Fund) to the Inland Empire - the first for the region.  Because of Taj’s focus on blending entertainment, policy, and entrepreneurship, the region was named the #4 city in the United States for minority entrepreneurs via Entrepreneur Magazine.

Taj began his career as a banker and economist with Wells Fargo Bank, UBS Investment Bank, and TRW Investments. Taj has also been a Founder, Board Member, and Investor in companies such as NCX, Bevy, BlocPower, ILTG Media, Boswell Official Apparel, Voter, Xtopoly, Rookielook, iListen, KYC Hospitality, KIGT, Majira Project, CleanTek Capital and ConCreates. Taj also serves on the Climate Finance Advisory Team of the Community Investment Guarantee Pool (CIGP), the Executive Board of the Homeboy Ventures Fund, The Majira Project, and Advisory Board of VC Include.

Taj has been profiled in publications such as Impact Alpha, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pitchbook, Forbes, GreenBiz, Entrepreneur Magazine, and more regarding his tireless efforts on achieving alpha while also advancing equity. 

Taj has undergraduate degrees in poetry & literature and graduate geopolitical economics from Texas A&M University-Commerce, Pepperdine University, and Claremont Graduate University. Taj also studied abroad at The Universidad Adolfo Ibanez in Santiago, Chile, The Universidad Do Porto in Porto, Portugal, and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in Hong Kong, China. 

Taj is an avid audiobook bibliophile and a lover of music of all genres.

Sophie Purdom invests with conviction in early-stage climate technology founders and their companies via her $75M venture capital fund, Planeteer Capital. She writes Climate Tech VC to bring perspective and data to 50,000+ subscribers, and helps steer CTVC’s climate market intelligence platform. Prior, Sophie started a carbon-negative fertilizer company, launched an early institutional ESG fund, and learned to make pretty decks at Bain & Co. She was born in a British village, but feels most at home playing handball on the streets of New York.

Mia Diawara is a Partner at Lowercarbon Capital, where she invests in unreasonably ambitious teams building climate tech that will move the needle for the planet and its people. She also focuses on making sure this work is carried out inclusively and equitably. Prior to joining Lowercarbon, Mia spearheaded decarbonization strategy across a portfolio of over $90B in assets under management at TPG, where she developed and kicked off the execution of the firm’s first comprehensive climate roadmap and advised portfolio companies on climate risk, emissions reduction, and ESG strategy. At TPG, she was instrumental to the development of the fund’s climate impact assessment methodology for TPG Rise Climate - their climate focused impact fund. Mia holds a B.S. in Science, Technology, and Society, with a focus on Environment & Sustainability, and an M.S. in Civil Environmental Engineering with a concentration in Atmosphere and Energy—both from Stanford University.

Emily Kirsch is the Founder and CEO of Powerhouse and Managing Partner of Powerhouse Ventures, which backs entrepreneurs building the future of energy and mobility. Emily launched and hosts the Greentech Media podcast Watt it Takes and serves on the Investment Advisory Board of NYSERDA. Emily sits on the World Economic Forum’s Advanced Energy Technologies Council and was selected as a 2019 WEF Young Global Leader. Her work has been cited in Bloomberg, The Guardian, TechCrunch, and The New York Times.

Bringing 25 years of industry experience leading, managing, and consulting on a wide range of sustainability, green building, clean energy, and technology issues, Elaine is passionate about the power of multi-stakeholder alignment and helping people understand and respect the interconnectedness of our world. Elaine is currently focused on scaling up Third Derivative (D3) — a vertically-integrated global climate tech accelerator program founded by RMI and New Energy Nexus. D3 has been building an inclusive ecosystem to rapidly find, fund and scale climate tech innovation globally. By uniting and aligning committed investors, global corporates, and RMI's market, regulatory, and policy experts — all the stakeholders needed to bridge gaps faster — supported by financing and insights along the way, D3 increases the rate at which climate innovations can help us achieve a prosperous, equitable, and inclusive 1.5-degrees C world. Prior to joining the D3 leadership team, Elaine was widely recognized as the program director for VERGE at GreenBiz — the premier global event series focused on scaling solutions that bridge technology, sustainability, and systems-thinking across cities and industries. She has also had careers as a green building consultant, utility business strategist, engineer, and technologist. Elaine graduated from Duke University with a Master’s degree in engineering management and a Bachelor’s in biomedical engineering.

Chante Harris is a champion of social and financial innovation. Throughout her career. she has successfully scaled nationwide campaigns, technologies, and ideas for the Obama Administration, Fortune 500 companies, and startups. Her writing and work have been featured by ImpactAlpha, Business Insider, The Milken Institute, and other notable publications.

As an operator, she has secured and effectively deployed millions of dollars for the implementation of climate projects and energy-efficient technologies. In 2020 she built a $10 million early stage climate tech venture studio in the U.S. focused on global companies deploying technologies across mobility, buildings, agriculture, waste, water, materials, and carbon. Chante recently completed a residency with Schmidt Futures and is now developing new financial and deployment models with a broader group of catalytic funders to address the funding gap for hard tech and material science climate technologies at the critical early infrastructure project stage.

Named by Forbes as a 30 Under 30 in the Energy Category, Nasdaq as a Woman to Watch in 2022, ACEEE as a Champion for Energy Efficiency, GreenBiz as 30 Under 30 Leader, America on Tech as an Innovator and Disruptor, and Women Enews as a Pioneering Woman in Sustainability, Chante is at the helm of driving climate innovation and advancing the energy transition across the globe. Chante has traveled the world to speak at global events like COP, GreenBiz, and TechStars.

In addition to her work leading in climate tech and investment, Chante launched and built the only global digital collective and community that is 100% dedicated to advancing women of color working across the sustainability industry. Since its launch in the summer of 2019, the community has brought together over 5,000 women of color through virtual and in-person events, social media channels, a digital community, and online publication. 

Chante is on the advisory committee for the first-ever global Climate Center being built on Governor's Island in NYC and sits on the Board of Summit Impact. She is a lover of nature and music, an avid meditator, and a poet.

Andrew brings to Obvious Ventures a lifelong passion for building companies around sustainable systems and people power. For over a decade, Andrew has focused on clean technology and clean energy solutions. He started down the clean tech path with Energy Innovations in 2003, which he grew from a business plan to a major solar developer serving customers like Google, Disney, Sony Pictures, and British Telecom. After selling the company to Suntech in 2008, Andrew served as Chief Commercial Officer at Suntech as well as Vice President of Global Product Strategy. During his tenure, Suntech became the largest solar company in the world. After leaving Suntech, Andrew spent two years as Vice President of Distributed Generation for Nextera Energy, the largest clean energy developer in the US. Before his clean tech career, Andrew spent a decade building companies in the early days of “Web 1.0.” In 1998 Andrew co-founded Bigstep.com, an e-commerce platform designed to serve the needs of small businesses entering the Internet age. He has been supporting the enterprising ideas of people power ever since. Andrew is a member of the Advisory Board for GE’s distributed generation business, Current by GE. He is also a member of the NREL Investor Advisory Board. A graduate from Dartmouth College, Andrew lives in Burlingame, CA with his wife and three children. When he's not helping to build early stage companies, Andrew builds wooden boats and furniture. Andrewwas born in New York City and spent his formative years on an avocado ranch in Ojai, California.