Silvija Seres: Hello and welcome to Lorn. My name is Silvija Seres and our topic today is startup ecosystems that grow and the social impact of technology. I'm very lucky to have Cilia Holmes Indahl as my guest. Celia was a well known and respected leader in a large Norwegian corporation called Aker Bio Marine and now she's heading the Katapult system.Welcome.

Cilia Holmes Indahl: Thank you. Great to be here.

Silvija: So Cilia we'll talk a little bit about what got into you that made you leave the wonderful Aker Bio Marine and then how do you think about the whole project of Katapult that combines social impact with startups and technology in a relatively unique way in Norway. So maybe we can just start first with Celia before Arcade de la Marine.

Cilia: Yes. So I'm a trained economist but I have a double degree in International Business and Sustainable Development. So my research has been on how to create a business model that is both sustainable and profitable. And in that sense I think the Katapult system is probably the world's most exciting place for me to work from as a subject field. And then again it's the real challenge of getting an organization to actually work together when it's growing so rapidly and doing so much exciting stuff within the impact tax sphere.

Silvija:  Right. So I know you talk about walls and rock and roll and stuff and we'll get to that. But before that could you say just two words about Aker Bio Marine. I really didn't know anything about shrill and about all the new resources that are plentiful and extremely healthy both for medicine and food and other things. What do they do?

Cilia: So Aker Bio Marine is a company that sustainably harvested krill, a small shrimp that you find in the Antarctic in big swarms, is a very potent omega 3 source also used in fish feed worldwide. It is the global leader in supplying krill for the aquaculture and the omega 3 industries.

Silvija: And it also has some medical possibilities for humans.

Cilia: Yes but not to get too technical but it's an omega 3 source that is connected to a fossil lipid and another triglyceride. So a protein and not a fatty acid in terms of how it is absorbed in the human body which gives it some clear benefits. And it's a company that has a very clear purpose besides being in improving both human and planetary health. Having the culture going way back in the company of fishermen thinking that there is no use of harvesting from the sea to the benefit of human health. If you're not taking care of the health of the ocean at the same time there's no organized duality of the culture in the company. So I miss them a lot but this was just too good of an opportunity for me for my side to actually be able to say no to it.

Silvija: OK so what are you doing in Katapult?

Cilia:  I'm heading a network of Katapult companies that are all sort of aligned in the mission of moving capital technology and people towards a better world.

Silvija: A network of companies so there are companies like Katapult Ocean and  tell us more.

Cilia:  Katapult accelerator. And we have the Katapult Future Fest which is awareness building and Katapult communication. How can we help companies tell their story about how they're building a better future? So trying to catalyze and Katapult the change that we need by supporting both the for profit impact driven tech startups out there who wants to do good but also invest in them and attract and mobilize other capital into the impact investing space.

Silvija: So Katapult has moved in the last year from being a relatively well actually maybe two years from being a relatively local Norwegian startup accelerator program to being somewhat randomly invested to this incredible machine for finding really good cases globally. How did that happen?

Cilia: I think we were one of the first and we meant it real time when we went into the impact space not thinking of sustainability as being a binary either it's there or it's not. But really looking into how integrated it is in the business model and does it actually drive the value creation of that business and is it linked to its profitability. So making sure that the startups that we have in our accelerators and that we are invested in are the type of companies that the more impact they have the more money they will make and the more money they will make the more impact they have. So there is a reinforcing relationship between how they're creating value and how they're having an impact.

Silvija: I was recently at a big gathering where among others the governor of England was talking about things like climate and he had a wonderful parallel and actually this goes into many of the sustainability goals. He says before we used to think of them as tragedies of Commons now we understand these are tragedies of time horizon because all the incentives all the things we measure today and the things that we know how to redistribute happened in the relatively short timescale. You know it's annual taxation, it's annual bonuses et cetera. These are the things that won't really affect our lives before maybe five years from today and the effects 10 years from today will be immense on future losses because of less food production, less water, too much heat et cetera.

And how do we know this business of climate is something that I think if you manage to create the right tools today you can have an enormous wealth market potential and social potential later but somehow you have to make people understand it's urgent. How do you do that?

Cilia: I think there's one very specific thing we do and that is to organize the Katapult Future Fest which is a festival and a conference hybrid while being white. Our global community of experts together to discuss the urgency and the seriousness of these topics but remaining positive about the future. It's really hard to address climate change without people going into self-defense. We have to understand that business and technology as it is designed today by default will probably have a negative climate footprint. But understanding that instead of being ashamed and going into a defense we have to think about how we're driving solutions.

And I think it's great to tune back to just this week to actually criticize politicians that have not taken their true responsibility because they talk about green jobs and opportunities. And I felt for that because yes in the impact space we are investing in the solutions that will build the future that we need. That is a fossil fuel or a carbon neutral or carbon positive for that sense but it's also about building the models that will get us there and understanding that they have to be built in a way that is profitable for the short term so that they are designed for this market.

There's a lot of companies that will say when the carbon price goes up my company will be worth a lot of money. Tell me how you're making money today in your bridging model over your business model that will make money in a place where carbon is expensive right. So not jumping ahead of ourselves but building companies today that are shifting things I think is really important in having that urgency and I think choose one of our portfolio companies is a great example of showcasing that people actually want to carbon offset their lives and their lifestyles.

Silvija: Tell us a little bit but choose.

Cilia: So choosing actually gives you a potential to have a monthly subscription to carbon offsets. So every month I think I pay 50 Norwegian kroner and their four times carbon offset my lifestyle. How do they know or how do you calculate a normal lifestyle of a person of myself with the travels that include and then they are four times you can choose how much you want a carbon offset. I thought it would be nice to go positive so having four times my lifestyle.

Silvija: but you pay them what to do with this money?

Cilia: they buy carbon certificates for a project that are verified by the U.N. to actually capture carbon through planting trees. Trees are sort of offsetting carbon. So up Verified Carbon offsetting project and normally what you do with when you pay for those is actually you compensate for it. In industries with your carbon emissions but what they do is they rip it apart and say we're gonna take out this carbon from the system i.e. if it would have been a perfect market they would drive up the price of carbon.

Silvija: very interesting. Can you tell us about another company in your portfolio that you think deserves to be known?

Cilia: There's many of them but I think one of the things that are really exciting now is lab grown meat. I think that's a technology that is showing that we can actually have alternatives to our lifestyles today. They're just as good but met our end. But way better for the planet. So having meat grown in the lab tasting and smelling like meat so that it is truly it's figured as a substitute for what we are known today and also without the household animals and the methane gas that would be recognized as a carbon emission.

Silvija: We have to stop blaming the cows. But I was very fascinated. I was reading about this lab grown meat recently and you know my initial reaction was Oh you know who would want 3D printed meat but really they have tried and managed to understand why this meat tastes like meat. Where does it where does that you know the taste and smell experience really happen and it has to do with the way that the particular protein coagulate or something when you fry it and so and that is something that's really possible to re-engineer and no animals need to die for you to have the exact same tasting experience and probably a much better health experience from this meat.

Cilia: I think what is really interesting and what's to learn from those type of startups is we're invested in a fund called 50 years that are invested in Memphis meat and I think interesting for them is that Memphis meat are making a meatball as their first product right. They could have chosen to have it a different color and look very different but it has chosen the form that we already know as meat so that they get to be a bridging model over to the future. And I think that's one key for the startups that we're seeing that they're actually designing what's next into what's now they're designing the future products but they look and feel like what we are, what we know of today or what is familiar to us as consumers.

Silvija: I want to ask you just very briefly about Future Fest as well. I really like the job with you guys are doing. Is it difficult to get global thinkers to come to little Norway?

Cilia: Not at all. I wouldn't say that they're coming to Norway. They're coming to a village and I think one of the really secret sources about that festival is that we have like a mantic portion of speakers and experts coming there to share their competence and they are meant to stay for the full today.

So we don't have speakers who come in and then leave straight after you talk. They have their say around the area and have discussions and also making sure that every year the former speaker nominates somebody for next year that is new and noteworthy.

So these are not the people who have talked a lot of places but people who have really interesting ideas about the future and they have been told that they have to be at carnival Future First from the ones who are there they are before because the discussions and the quality of discussions was good. And I think that's one of the key feedbacks we also get is that people really felt that the quality of the discussions they could have informed discussions about the future were some of the best things about the conference.

Silvija: I think when you make a conference into not a one way thing but a two way thing and you get the startups to talk with these public intellectuals who get to talk to you know maybe some politicians that are waking up to the fact that it's happening here is wonderful.

It's a good book. Can you talk a little bit about controversies. I mean you have one of your main investors is a star struck with A.I. and there is a lot of hype around A.I. There are also going to be a lot of discussions about A.I. and ethics et cetera. How do you navigate the space? 

Cilia: It’s a really good question.. And one of the reasons why we just developed a framework for ethics in A.I.  And what we're also looking for there because…

Silvija: What does it say? 

Cilia: Yeah. So in terms of assessing the risk you also said you say OK have this algorithm been used in this industry before or is it new to this industry. What can be the consequences if it's used wrong? Are you collecting any data that you don't need? Like how are we securing that the algorithm and the use of the A.I. in that industry that we know of the risks of actually going into it and that we might it's not that if it's a huge risk we won't go in but that might be just the case we have to go into make sure that the founders are committed.

One example from our accelerator program is a drone company that works with making agriculture more efficient. And it's called Agri AI and they were approached by investors after leaving or finishing the accelerator program who wanted them to go into warfare with their drone technology and then being able as a founder to stay true to your mission and say.

Silvija: forgoing the money.

Cilia: Yeah, foregoing the money in those cases is really really important for us to actually succeed with what we're doing. So having the ethics A.I. framework and those types of framing as part of our accelerator programs for the founders to really understand how important it is that they know their impact. An example of technology use the other way is probably Pokémon Go where everybody was jumping up and saying yes this will be great for public health. The young kids who were formerly playing in their basement will be out in the streets and walking and hanging out together until the point where McDonald's pays them a whole lot of money to have all the prices outside the doors and paying them I said I think it's yeah. For every person who actually goes into McDonald's from the Pokemon game.

Silvija: I think that there is this slip sliding that happens you know where we slowly realize the potential of technology. And I think being clear on some of these red lines is super important. And if you're able to talk to your founders, if you're able to tell them about the long term effects and then you're doing a really really important piece of work do you see any advantages of running Katapult from Norway I mean you have global perspectives. Is it still a good place to stay.

Cilia: I think you can start an ecosystem and start like an anti-establishment against something or empowered by something. And I think really having the location and having the birthplace in Norway with the country with that degree of trust and also the sovereign wealth fund with their ethical guidelines and being known globally as being good at shareholder activism I think that's something that we were all actually confronted with. And we're saying that we're from Norway that it actually is a very natural birthplace for a hub for impact investing.

Silvija: Very cool. Where should we read more about. Actually I want to backtrack. I asked you how do you explain to people what you do and you gave me a really interesting answer. Can I ask that again

Cilia: of actually enabling all the network of Katapult companies to move both capital technology and people for a better future.

Silvija: So originally you didn't want to be moving capital. 

Cilia: Yes.

Silvija: What's changed.

Cilia: I think when I was studying financial markets as part of my education I felt that if you were just moving around the capital for metrics that were set by somebody else you were into actually having making a difference in what you did and you were following you weren't actually creating any really value I felt you were just moving and then somebody else could be moving it. But then now I realize I really love having the influence of moving the money when you can choose the premises and the metrics for why they're moved and I think that's something that was an eye opener for me.

Silvija: So where would you recommend that people who move money just for financial metrics today go and read up on your kind of investment.

Cilia: I think Jeff Emerson spoke the purpose of capital which is available as a free online resource is it is a great way to get into and…

Silvija: what does it say?

Cilia: It is more about the value creation of capital and how we can move it for something good and also understanding that the purpose of captivity has always been value creation for society. And I think that's really interesting when you go back and look at how we're actually measuring and looking at what is appropriate returns that will last for a long term, not a high or something that it's valued in the moment or it's sold. We're also a network of companies and accelerators who look into being founder friendly, meaning that we want to stay as long as we have value to add to the founder and not to sell us out because the valuation goes up and it might be a good return on our side.

Silvija: I think you have a really nice project.  Cilia would you like to leave a quote to our listeners has a little parting gift 

Cilia: I think one of the things that I've held all along is from Thomas Edison when he once said that there is no substitute to hard work. And I think it's really nice because you can be young and bright and have good intentions but if you can't get things done and you put it into a place or enable people to do it to deliver their best work you will never have the impact you intended to have.

Silvija: And things always get tough but that's where you need to understand that you have to keep staying with it. I think also when you talk to people who are into startups and the very many of those who think that it's only cool will give up because it will get very tough at some point but it's by being able to survive through those hard times that you actually differentiate yourself I guess from the ones who actually deliver.

Cilia: And I think grit is a characteristic or a quality that we need to grow in our society and the ability to stick it through and say I can do this and I'm going to continue to do it even though it seems uphill. I had actually. William McDonough, the founder of cradle to cradle and the circular economy thinking in this field he said Are you sure you want to start working in sustainability?'' It will be an uphill battle and you will never get to the top in your lifetime. And having that sort of premise going into sustainability it's more like Yeah but I'm going to enjoy my ride walking up that hill. It's gonna be tough but it's gonna be worth it even though I won't get to the top. And I think that's some of the attitude of grit of understanding that it's you're not giving up because you believe in what you do.  Yeah much

Silvija: But I also think what you just said is super important, that it's about the ride not about the go and if it's a meaningful ride then you make yourself stay.

Cilia: I think this is really about the ride and when I say to companies when they want to do sustainability it's not like gratitude makes us OK. Our house is on fire and we need to panic. I say 10 years from now let's say our house has burnt way down to the ground. It's all ashes left. Who would you want to be the one who tried to put out the fire or the ones who were on the sidelines looking at it. I think everybody wants to be part of it. So it's all about making sure that you find activities today that make sense for today even though we succeed or not.

Silvija:  If people are to remember one thing from our conversation what would you like it to be?

Cilia: Well I think maybe that it's important that we do things that have impact today and that makes sense today and that we're not. Don't get too lost in the future and what we wanted to be 

Silvija: That's a nice one. I'll remember that.  Cilia Holmes Indahl, new CEO of Katapult. Thank you for coming here to Lorn and for inspiring us not to just watch the house burn in disbelief or in apathy but in actually taking action.

And thank you for listening.