How Thailand’s 2004 tsunami inspired one VC to raise a $50 million fund to invest in sustainability 

– Sustainable investing. Sita Chantramonklasri “remember[s] every minute” of December 26, 2004. She was 12 years old, a student at a Bangkok international school. The Boxing Day tsunami that hit Thailand that day—and the uneven recovery that divided the “haves and have-nots”—is seared in her memory.

“We started hearing warnings all over the news and radio. I looked up what ‘tsunami’ even meant exactly,” Chantramonklasri remembers. Her typical drive to school passed high-rise apartments and brothels, and she saw how the privileged fared better in the disaster’s aftermath. “I didn’t understand how something could be so catastrophic that it could wipe away communities in an instant,” she says.

Today, Chantramonklasri is a New York-based investor behind the firm Siam Capital. Her firm invests in companies at the intersection of sustainability and consumer infrastructure—and her experiences growing up in Thailand informed that investment thesis. “I realized the vast impact of climate events, not just on the natural landscape, but on people,” she says. In addition to her experience in 2004, Chantramonklasri spent her youth observing her father’s work in the energy sector, visiting both oil rigs and solar farms.

Horacio Villalobos—Getty Images

As a solo GP, she raised almost $50 million for her firm’s first fund; the firm has deployed $43.8 million of that capital. Its investments include the biotech company Helaina (which started as an infant nutrition startup), the product development marketplace Novi, and the food and beverage brand platform Tomorrow Farms. Her second vehicle now counts Kasikorn Bank, one of Thailand’s largest banks, as an investor.

An Uber and Goldman Sachs alum, she founded her own firm after working for Twitter cofounder Biz Stone’s VC firm Future Positive. She identified sustainability as her interest and refined a thesis. “It felt like people investing in sustainability were working at it from a nonprofit lens,” she says. She wanted to invest for long-term returns. Her answer was a consumer focus; her fund has backed startups that build an “infrastructure layer” to help companies meet demand as consumer habits change because of environmental and economic pressures. What people buy, how they spend their time, and what services they use will all be affected by the future of the planet, she argues.

Chantramonklasri doesn’t consider Siam to be a climate tech firm, and she cautions others in the space to move deliberately. “There’s almost an urgency to deploy solutions,” she says. “I’m scared we’re starting to see technologies being funded that aren’t necessarily the best ideas for venture funding. A lot of these ideas need to exist, but not all of them can generate venture-like returns.”

Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe

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PARTING WORDS

"I don’t know why our ability to connect with people all around the world hasn’t translated yet to more global kindness."

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