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Steve Melhuish
Founder & Investor I Climate & Social Impact
Steve Melhuish is a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, and sustainability advocate with extensive experience in climate technology and impact investing.12 He is the co-founder and Founding Partner of Wavemaker Impact, where he focuses on building climate tech ventures in Asia aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.12 Melhuish is also the Founder and CEO of Planet Rise, an organization addressing climate change and social inequality through technology.13
As a co-founder and Board Director of PropertyGuru Group, Melhuish led the company to become a proptech unicorn.12 He serves in advisory roles for several organizations, including:
- Ampd Energy
- The Earthshot Prize
- Eco-Business
- Impact Investment Exchange (IIX)
- Habitat for Humanity International (as an advisor for ShelterTech)
Melhuish is also a Venture Partner and investor at Wavemaker Partners, where he invests in various sustainability-focused startups.12 He holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications Engineering from the University of Plymouth and a Diploma in Marketing from the University of Reading.1
With over 28 years of experience building businesses in Asia and Europe, Melhuish has scaled teams from 2 to 1,300 people, raised over $300M in funding, and led M&A deals.3 He is passionate about entrepreneurship, climate change, and social equality, and has been recognized with the "Spirit of Enterprise Award" in 2007 for his contributions to entrepreneurship in Singapore.3
Highlights
Check out Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy "State of Transition 2023 - Accelerating the Clean Industrial Revolution" report.
5 activities globally account for 100% of GHG emissions - building stuff, growing food, transport, electricity & warming/cooling our buildings. In every single one there are new climatetech startups focused on decarbonising these "Grand Challenges": 1/ Electrify everything - Accelerate adoption of renewables & nuclear 2/ Green manufacturing - Cement & Steel is 10% of emissions, "hard to abate" becomes "have to abate" 3/ Sustainable Agriculture - 20% of emissions. Intensify food production, whilst reducing emissions 4/ Zero Carbon Transport - EV's, long haul heavy-duty transport & e-fuels
Especially happy to see the shout out for Rize - Wavemaker Impact's joint venture with Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Temasek and GenZero: "In Southeast Asia, water demand is heavily driven by rice irrigation; in India, over 60% of water demand comes from rice fields. Growing rice in flooded fields contributes significantly to global methane emissions... rice is the world’s most greenhouse gas-intensive crop on a per acre basis.... yet a critical component of diets in Southeast Asia... by 2050, rice demand is expected to increase 50%. To accelerate low water-use, low-methane rice cultivation technologies, Breakthrough Energy Ventures co-founded Rize. Rize works with rice growers to accelerate adoption of a water-saving [& methane reducing] irrigation technique called Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD)"
Exciting to see Rize develop from idea to reality over the last 12+ months thanks to Peter T. Anuj Maheshwari ChunCheng Yeo Frederick Teo Ling Min Hoon Marie Cheong Dhruv Sawhney Paul Teng Ibnu Abi Hatim Amin Du Tran Tauhid Pandji Sơn Tăng Onwards and upwards!
https://lnkd.in/d89XVb3e
#climatetech #lowemissionsrice #foodsecurity #agritech #rice #methanereduction #waterresilience #innovation #southasia
