The energy transition is full of brilliant technology that never leaves the lab. Not because the science is wrong, but because nobody in the room knows how to turn it into a business. Vineet Shah spent 18 years inside that room. He started his career on a 4.6 gigawatt power plant, worked through Curtiss Wright and Caltrol, and co-founded Honeywell's lithium-ion battery business, where he grew the unit from $0 to over $100M in three years. Now he is the founder of 8 Clockwise Fund I, backing US founders decarbonizing hard-to-abate industries like batteries, energy storage, specialty chemicals, steel, and power. On the Top Decile Podcast, Shah told Decile Group's Connor Sattely why an operator who lived the commercialization problem decided to fund it instead.
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From the Plant Floor to the Cap Table
Most climate investors come from software, finance, or social impact. Shah came from the machine itself, and that shapes how he reads a deal. In his experience, the ideas rarely fail on science. "Most of the times it's the teams, how they're working together," he said, "and then we just lose the eye on the ball, which is the customers at the end of the day for the business."
After advising founders for years, the transition to capital was, in his words, natural. "Venture capital is truly the ultimate force of good," Shah said. "We need to fund these innovations that are probably gonna change their respective value chains if they're successful. And if nobody's funding them, we are never gonna change." He formalized his advisory work into a venture studio, then launched the fund to finance the companies inside it and beyond.
Finite to Infinite
The fund's guiding motto is "finite to infinite," and it runs deeper than a tagline. Shah believes the reason the world worries about climate, water, and food is scarcity, and he wants to design against it. "Imagine a world where we have infinite energy and infinite resources," he said. "That's the world I imagine for us to live in."
The name encodes the same idea. "If you turn number eight clockwise it becomes an infinity symbol," Shah explained. The number carries a second meaning. "It takes eight minutes for the Sun to reach Earth. And Sun is a very good representation of infinite energy for us."
A Studio Inside the Fund
Shah is blunt about the odds. Between 75 and 80 percent of venture-backed startups fail, and he has little patience for the standard playbook. "There is this VC term spray and pray," he said. "You're spraying your money across 20 companies and hoping two of them will work, and that's all you're doing."
His model is built to improve those odds. 8 Clockwise plans to invest in roughly 20 companies, then take three or four of the highest-conviction bets through its venture studio. "We will actually roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty and help them grow from technology readiness level four to eight," Shah said. The pitch that landed with LPs was simple: "It's not just another spray and pray VC fund, it's like a VC fund with some venture studio backing." The team is the other half of the story. Shah's advanced-materials and energy operators each carry two to three decades of experience. "I'm the least experienced person on my team," he said, "and I love it."
Patient Capital for Deep Tech
8 Clockwise focuses on industrial technologies: process IP, product IP, and industrial software. Shah is direct about what that means for return timelines. "This is not another next AI or software fund. It's patient capital." A process-IP company does not go from lab to scale in two years, and he wants LPs who understand that cycle before they wire a check.
That is why the fund's first close skews toward energy executives who know the sector, alongside investors diversifying in for the first time. Many of his LPs previously invested in real estate or restaurants and assumed deep tech was reserved for the Exxons and BPs of the world. 8 Clockwise gives them a way in. A small check becomes part of the fund's target pool, buying access to high-conviction deals that a $50,000 angel check could never reach.
One named portfolio company shows the thesis in practice: Carbomat, a Calgary-based venture-studio company with process IP to convert low-value, high-carbon bitumen byproducts from oil extraction into carbon fiber, with battery materials on the roadmap. Beyond it, Shah is tracking membrane technologies that separate CO2 from flue gas, battery separator technology, and grid software.
For LPs and Founders
8 Clockwise Fund I is built for LPs who want more than exposure to the energy transition. They want a seat inside it. Shah's target archetype is the senior energy or industrial executive who understands patient capital and wants to move off the sidelines, plus first-time deep-tech investors drawn by access they could not get alone. Larger LPs are offered co-investment opportunities. For founders working on process IP, advanced materials, or industrial software at technology readiness level four or five, Shah's studio-plus-fund model is designed to carry the strongest bets from prototype to scale.
Learn more about the fund and request access on Decile Access: https://decileaccess.com/funds/8-clockwise-fund-i
About 8 Clockwise Fund I
8 Clockwise Fund I backs US founders decarbonizing hard-to-abate industries like batteries, energy storage, specialty chemicals, steel, and power, investing at the pre-seed and seed stage. Founder Vineet Shah spent 18 years turning frontier industrial technology into paying customer revenue at Curtiss Wright, Caltrol, and Honeywell, where he grew the lithium-ion battery business from $0 to over $100M in three years. The fund pairs a diversified portfolio with a hands-on venture studio, guided by a single idea: finite to infinite.
Watch The Full Episode Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7ZBGFsEbjc