About this episode
Most clean industrial projects start as science in a university lab. Someone has to back that science long before it makes a dollar, and long before there is a project to finance. Mike Molinari does exactly that.
Mike is the Managing Director of IP Group Australia, one of the most active early-stage deep tech investors in the country. IP Group partners with Australia’s leading research universities, finds breakthrough science, and backs it from the university lab through to scale. Its Australian manages just over half a billion dollars.
Joy McConnochie sits down with Mike to open up how deep tech investing works. He explains IP Group’s evergreen structure and why being patient but not lazy matters, walks through backing Hysata’s record-breaking electrolyser, makes the counterintuitive case that the AI boom is what makes now the moment for climate tech, and gets honest about the first-of-a-kind gap that strands good technology between the lab and the market.
About the guest
Mike Molinari is Managing Director of IP Group Australia. He grew up in country Western Australia, studied chemical engineering at the University of Melbourne, and holds a DPhil in Biomedical Engineering from Oxford. He started at McKinsey, first joined IP Group in London in 2012, spent time at Brandon Capital, then returned in 2017 to build IP Group’s Australian operation from scratch.
”We need to show that investing in net zero technologies generates competitive returns, not just rely on the moral argument.
Mike Molinari
Key Links
We cover
- The IP Group model, and how it differs from typical venture capital
- The evergreen structure: why patient but not lazy capital matters
- Backing Hysata: spotting a record-breaking electrolyser early
- Technology risk versus market risk, and the first-of-a-kind translation gap
- The Climate Catalyst Fund, and why the AI boom makes now the moment
- Decarbonising the mineral supply chain: lithium, and the copper tailings opportunity
- Diligence with no revenue, and the red flags that make them walk away
- Policy: Future Made in Australia, ARENA, and the need for stability
- Keeping companies Australian while selling to the world
