Startup Intelligence Intern

Program Overview

Tackling the climate crisis is a once-in-a-generation, trillion-dollar economic opportunity, and the world needs a healthy global innovation engine to identify and massively scale new climate technology solutions that will speed up the clean energy transition. 

Founded by RMI and New Energy Nexus for this purpose, Third Derivative (D3) is a global climate technology startup accelerator aimed at accelerating the rate of climate innovation. Our mission is to build an inclusive ecosystem that rapidly finds, funds, and scales climate tech innovation globally.  

We’ve built a vertically-integrated startup accelerator model to back this, which unites investors, corporates, market and policy experts, and startups to work together to increase the success and speed to market for climate innovation. 

Since our launch in December last year, our ecosystem includes $3.3T market cap of corporate partners, $1B AUM of investor partners (across five continents), and 46 startups reflecting climate innovations solving for all major emissions sectors. 

Now, our high-performance team of climate enthusiasts is growing, and we’re seeking a Startup Intelligence Intern who is excited to learn, work, and join us in our mission. 

Position overview

The Startup Intelligence Intern’s work will center around D3’s climate tech startup database. The database is a key part of D3’s selection process, insight generation, and value proposition to our ecosystem partners. We use it to understand the competitive landscape, track technology trends and progress, and search for the best startups.  

To date we have collected data on 800+ startups who have applied to our program.  The intern will be working with Airtable--a very intuitive tool with similar functionality to common spreadsheet programs like Excel--to continuously clean, organize, update and supplement this information.  

The intern will gain broad experience with a wide range of new technologies and business models. The intern will also join calls with venture capital investors as well as corporate sustainability and innovation teams from around the world, learning about their perspectives, and how they make investment and partnership decisions. 

Application Deadline: October 20, 2021 

Time Commitment: This internship is designed to be part-time (10-20 hours per week) while you are in school. It would then move to a full-time position in Summer 2022. 

Responsibilities:  

• Helping to design a database that will create value from existing applicant data as well as future applicants and research.  
• Helping to maintain and expand on existing database content by regularly cleaning and rationalizing data as well as adding new data as it becomes available  
• Researching climate tech startups from around the world, with guidance from D3 team members, to understand what is unique about their technology, business model, or other innovation. Compare these startups with competitors from an investment, business, and climate impact perspective.  
• Join discussions with investor and corporate partners to better understand their perspective and help them get the most value from our database 
• Leverage the database to support the D3 team in performing analysis and publishing insights briefs on key clean energy technologies—e.g., pulling data from the database and displaying this data in a useful format such as a competitive landscape map of startups working on a specific technology area 

Minimum Qualifications: 

• Currently enrolled in a college/university program 
• A strong desire to learn and the ability to learn quickly 
• Strong creative problem solving skills. Comfort working with uncertainty
• Outstanding analytical skills, detail-oriented, organized, proactive, and self-motivated 
• Academic background in science or engineering
• Passion for solving climate change 
• Strong verbal and written communication skills. Ability to independently field calls with corporate/investor partners as well as startup applicants 
• Outstanding analytical skills, detail-oriented, proactive and self-motivated 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience/coursework focused on managing, organizing, and visualizing data 
• Software API/coding experience 
• Entrepreneurship experience 
• Climate warrior with a demonstrated track record of building or championing climate tech innovation 

Location

Remote within the U.S.

Compensation

$18.00/hour

Benefits    

We offer a comprehensive benefits package including:    

• Medical, dental, vision insurance    
• 403b retirement options (5% match immediately)    
• Life, AD&D, short-term and long-term disability    
• Professional and personal development (including LinkedIn Learning access)    
• Generous paid time off   
• Parental leave    
• Commuter and wellness benefits    
• Casual work environment    

*Please note not all benefits are available to part time employees 

Diversity      

Increasing the diversity of thought, perspectives, ideas, and opinions within RMI is a critical change element supporting our long-term sustainability and mission to build a clean, prosperous, and secure energy future.    

We strive for a level of diversity that reflects the communities we serve. Achieving this—regardless of ability, race, ethnicity, ancestry, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, socioeconomic class, educational attainment or other social identities—is critical to the success of each RMIer and collectively as an organization, ensuring that we:      

• Have the different array of thinking that comes from diverse backgrounds and cultures, enabling us to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges.    
• Strive for a culture of inclusion and belonging by treating others with dignity, respect and appreciation enabling them to feel welcomed, supported and valued.    
• Effectively connect, communicate and build long-lasting relationships with decision makers, stakeholders and constituents within diverse communities.    

RMI is an Equal Opportunity Employer.     

About RMI   

RMI is an independent nonprofit founded in 1982 that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. We work in the world’s most critical geographies and engage businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent by 2030. RMI has offices in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Oakland, California; Washington, D.C.; and Beijing.

About New Energy Nexus   

New Energy Nexus is a non-profit international organization that strives towards an abundant world with a 100% clean energy economy for 100% of the population in the shortest time possible. To achieve this goal, New Energy Nexus supports diverse clean energy entrepreneurs with funds, accelerators and networks. New Energy Nexus started in California and now operate programs in New York, China, India, Southeast Asia and East Africa. 

JOB CODE: 1000426