Stonly Baptiste Blue is connecting thinkers and makers to capital

SHACK15 member Stonly Baptiste Blue is a Founding Partner of Third Sphere (formerly know as Urban Us). He has taught at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and lectured at Harvard Business School and UC Berkeley. Stonly previously founded Veddio Cloud Solutions, an enterprise software company, which, through a series of acquisitions, now lives in NetApp (NTAP on Nasdaq). He is a serial entrepreneur, having built five ventures spanning different sectors from technology to real estate and international markets, including Brazil and Canada. Stonly enjoys learning languages, playing instruments, studying math and science, practicing martial arts, reading, and spending time with friends and family. He spoke with the Journal about the future of cities in the face of climate change, and what his enterprise Third Sphere is doing to change the way we live.

SHACK15: Tell us about your background and how you got involved in urban innovation and climate action.

Stonly: I've been building companies since I was 18. I sold my last one, an enterprise software company, at 28 and was motivated to help other entrepreneurs and work on climate change. Eight years ago, I co-founded a fund for sourcing early companies working on urban sustainability. I've spent most of the last decade working on climate change, backing solutions that are now woven into the urban fabric, while also helping founders build companies that had a chance at becoming big, financially and in impact, very quickly.

SHACK15: Urban Us recently went through a rebrand and is now Third Sphere. Can you tell us what motivated the change?

Stonly: Twelve months into the pandemic, we noticed four key changes:

1. Climate interest accelerated dramatically among investors, businesses and consumers. So we could be more direct about this part of our mission.

2. LPs (our investors) wanted less emphasis on limited and more on partner. So we built our platform and brand to be more collaborative.

3. Remote first meant new possibilities to accelerate pre-seed and seed startups. A brand upgrade is a good excuse to re-introduce ourselves to our most important stakeholders.

4. Storytelling had become more complex with the Urban Us brand. As shared earlier, we started off wanting to work on climate change without talking about climate change. By 2020, with the world more "warm" to deliberate climate action and investing, the roundabout approach to our story was more distracting than it was additive. We've already seen the benefits of the brand upgrade in a significant increase in founders wanting to be introduced to us.

SHACK15: What is the Third Sphere and what are some of your current projects?

Stonly: There are many third-sphere references in nature, science, and engineering. Today we introduce ourselves with this:

The Third Sphere is a leading climate-focused seed stage fund. We're rated in the top 1-2% climatetech investing by reputation (on NFX Signal) and impact rankings (on Climate50). Our notable portfolio companies include Bowery Farming ($3b, 36x MOIC, backed by Fidelity), Onewheel ($1b, 51x MOIC), Vesatile ($500m, 28x MOIC, backed by Tiger) and Cove Tool ($200m, 7x MOIC, backed by Coatue). Our startup sourcing is from a proprietary network of over 15k customers, investors, founders and experts. Our platform also includes private credit funds with institutional backing, to unlock non-dilutive growth for more asset-intensive startups.

SHACK15: What can we look forward to in the next 20 years in terms of climate-conscious designs and planning?

Stonly: Hopefully, we not only avoid the worst of climate change, but also get better products and services out of the efforts. You'll see more of your life directly improved by at least one of our over 100 portfolio companies that unlock GHG reduction and resilience via strategies including electrification, sustainable building design, lower-carbon food systems, and more.