Building the Future with Patrick Maloney, CIV

Patrick Maloney is the Co-founder and CEO at CIV, and this episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the UCLA Anderson School of Management as part of LA Climate Week.

Patrick's firm, CIV, is a new venture capital investment firm based in Venice, California, that backs and builds companies at the nexus of industry and technology. Patrick has had a long, successful career in clean tech. Before CIV, he founded and led Inspire, a clean energy technology company acquired by Shell in 2021. And for his work at Inspire, he was named Ernst & Young's 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner for Clean Tech and Renewables. Before Inspire, Patrick co-founded Independence Energy and was on the founding team of Energy Plus, both of which were acquired by NRG. Patrick is also co-founder of The Nuclear Company, in which we are proud investors via our venture funds at MCJ.

In this episode, we cover: 

• [1:39] How the LA wildfires shaped Patrick’s outlook
• [4:12] Why energy ties into philosophy, economics, and politics
• [7:01] Patrick’s early steps as an energy entrepreneur
• [10:05] The founding story behind Inspire
• [10:59] Lessons for CEOs and startup founders
• [14:59] Why Patrick sold Inspire to Shell
• [17:39] Entering venture capital and what came next
• [20:32] What CIV is and how it got started
• [22:30] CIV’s first fund and core motivation
• [27:12] How The Nuclear Company came to be
• [31:31] CIV’s approach to measuring impact
• [32:53] Patrick’s take on “climate tech” today
• [35:17] Navigating today’s tariff and policy shifts
• [36:26] What CIV looks for in investments
• [39:12] The future of energy and who will lead it

Episode recorded on April 8, 2025 (Published on April 24, 2025)

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant