The 1.5° Ventures Team Is Dedicated To Scale Climate Start-Ups For Impact & Return
The 1.5° Ventures team are complementary experts with exactly the broad set of skills and experience needed to help accelerate complex climate tech start-ups. We act as force multipliers – sharing hard lessons learned, accelerating growth and avoiding mistakes – to enable passionate founders and teams to succeed – whatever it takes.
Jeff Katz
Technologist and Engineer
- Tech evangelist, speaker, mentor, and community builder (HARDWARE.co, Techstars, Google)—supported more than 250 start-ups
- CTO at start-ups (KIWI.KI) and corporates (Telefónica, Daimler)
- “Full stack” hard- & software engineering, Systems & Cloud Architecture
- BSc Computer Science (Frostburg State University)
Dr. Julian Weisbrod
Entrepreneur and Business Angel
- Accomplished business angel and start-up coach with track-record of early-stage spotting of unicorns (Rasa, Hasty, Raisin, Billie, Lingoda…)
- Built successful B2B high-tech and energy start-ups
- Expert in strategy and go-to-market
- Understands corporate clients and top-management (McKinsey)
- PhD Econ. (Uni. Göttingen), MA Econ. Honors (Uni. Edinburgh|UCSD 3rd Year)
Dr. Tobias Lechtenfeld
Climate Solutions and Public Finance
- Background in decarbonization & climate tech
- ex-Green Hydrogen program lead at BMZ responsible for business dev, consortia building, B2B partnerships
- Experience in project finance (World Bank, Infrastructure Finance, PPPs)
- Track-record in working with policy makers, tech founders, investors, ecosystem builder
- PhD Econ. (Uni. Göttingen), MSc Econ. Honors (Uni. Amsterdam)