Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The widow of an early Berkshire Hathaway investor donated $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Warner Bros. woos back J.K. Rowling, and living through Thailand’s 2004 tsunami inspired one VC’s investment thesis. Have a thoughtful Tuesday.
– 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.
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
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Free for all. A former pediatrics professor and current trustee at the Bronx’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine donated $1 billion to the school to ensure free tuition for all future students. The donation from Ruth Gottesman, the widow of an early Berkshire Hathaway investor, will be used to “attract a talented and diverse pool of individuals who may not otherwise have the means to pursue a medical education,” the school said. Fortune
- Rowling returns. Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav took it upon himself to woo Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling back to the studio after it distanced itself from her following controversial remarks about the transgender community. With Rowling now involved in an upcoming Harry Potter TV series, the studio seems ready to reconcile with the author who wields enormous power over the IP of the series she created. Wall Street Journal
- A league of their own. The inaugural season of what is believed to be the first professional softball league in Latin America is underway, reflecting the growing popularity of women’s sports in the region. The Mexico-based league is already drawing tens of thousands of spectators to watch female players who previously had to leave the country to compete professionally. The New York Times
- Hello lifeline. Candle Media has hired investment bank Moelis & Co. to revive Hello Sunshine, the women-centered media company founded by Reese Witherspoon. Sources say the bank is focused on expansion after Hello Sunshine fell short of the $80 million in profits it projected last year. Puck
- Racing from restrictions. Women in Alabama are rushing to move their frozen embryos out of state after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling threatened in vitro fertilization there last week. Transport is expensive and risks the viability of the embryos many women believe to be their last hope of a pregnancy. The Cut
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Walgreens Boots Alliance hired Lanesha Minnix as executive vice president and global chief legal officer. Supergoop! named former JLo Beauty CEO Lisa Sequino as its new chief executive officer.
ON MY RADAR
Fran Drescher on what’s lost when Hollywood’s so beholden to shareholders Vanity Fair
Mindy Kaling on egg freezing and advice from Oprah The Wall Street Journal
One of the last abortion doctors in Indiana The New Yorker
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."
—Activist and writer Monica Lewinsky, the face of a new Reformation campaign, on the internet's ability to both isolate and connect people
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