The heat of reality
N°8 - September 2025
As August draws to a close, this edition reveals how extreme heat is becoming humanity's most visceral teacher about climate change and systemic fragility.
The physical reality manifests in unexpected ways: heat waves accelerate biological aging by up to 12 days over two years while triggering eco-anxiety's "Oh my god point." Ocean acidification threatens to leave sharks toothless, undermining marine ecosystems already stressed by rising temperatures.
Yet capital markets display contradictory behavior. European startups raised billions across 12 new unicorns in H1 2025, with investors betting on "AI, AI, and AI" alongside biotech. Meanwhile, venture capital funding has collapsed 80% from its 2021 peak, settling into post-bubble reality with extreme selectivity.
This reflects deeper tension between technological optimism and sustainability challenges. History suggests AI's golden age requires a crash first—95% of companies see zero returns from generative AI despite massive infrastructure spending.
The workplace mirrors this dissonance. While companies force office returns, forward-thinking leaders advocate for mission-centered organisations, recognising 60% of young workers plan to leave within five years without meaningful purpose.
The featured graph captures venture capital's reality check: funding has stabilised around $90-100 billion annually after the pandemic bubble, suggesting new equilibrium built on heightened due diligence.
We hope this curation will drive your own reflections and actions. Please feel free to share it with those who might be interested.
Let’s dive in! 💫
Insights
Guillaume Bregeras 🇫🇷 analyses how the private equity liquidity drought has made evergreen funds the industry's "new social contract," with assets under management expected to reach $4.4 trillion by 2029. As one-third of 2017 VC funds still show zero returns and IPO windows remain shut, BlackRock's ELTIF 2.0 evergreen platform and Sequoia's pivot signal that permanent capital structures are moving from margin to mainstream, driven by $150 trillion in private wealth seeking flexible liquidity. | 2050 - FINANCE - Private Equity
Lim Chow-Kiat 🇸🇬 outlines three investment principles for navigating "foundational shifts" that are rewriting global investment rules beyond traditional market cycles. The GIC CEO emphasises avoiding permanent losses through disciplined pricing, while advocating for diversification, granularity to target specific opportunities within broad themes like AI and climate, and agility to capitalise on market dislocations when others cannot act. | World Economic Forum - FINANCE - Investment
Ekhosuehi Iyahen, Daniel Murphy & Andre Belelieu 🌍 argue that the insurance industry must evolve from passive safety net to proactive resilience-builder as extreme weather caused $320 billion in damages in 2024 with less than half insured. They outline how the Insurance Development Forum's new Infrastructure Resilience Development Fund aims to mobilise capital for climate adaptation, emphasising that every $1 invested in disaster risk reduction yields $13 in economic benefits despite 88% of disaster financing still going to post-disaster response. | World Economic Forum - FINANCE - Insurance
Louis Delannoy & Peter Søgaard Jørgensen 🇸🇪 reveal through 50 years of data from 175 countries that polycrisis is a trackable phenomenon with dangerous patterns of shock co-occurrence. The Stockholm Resilience Centre research shows climatic, technological, and conflict-related shocks frequently strike together, with up to 75% of all shocks co-occurring in Asia compared to only 25% in OECD countries, highlighting the urgent need for proactive rather than reactive crisis management. | Stockholm Resilience Centre - SCIENCE - Systems Research
Sachi Kitajima Mulkey 🇺🇸 reveals that extreme heat waves can accelerate biological aging, with just two years of exposure adding 8-12 extra days of age-related health damage. The University of Hong Kong research analyzing 15 years of data from 25,000 Taiwanese adults shows older populations and those without air conditioning face disproportionate risks, while moderate AC adoption correlates with reduced aging effects over time. | Nature Climate Change - HEALTH - Climate Impact
Juliette Fekkar 🇫🇷 reveals that heat waves act as brutal triggers for eco-anxiety, creating an "Oh my god point" where emotional awareness of the climate crisis activates. Her investigation with Hélène Jalin shows that heat revives climate urgency, generates feelings of powerlessness facing necessary changes, and confronts people with "grief for the world before" through forced micro-changes in habits. | Le Monde - PSYCHOLOGY - Climate Anxiety
Sophie Kevany 🇮🇪 reveals that ocean acidification could erode sharks' teeth faster than replacement rates, potentially compromising their feeding efficiency and marine ecosystem stability. The study by Maximilian Baum shows that projected pH drops from 8.1 to 7.3 by 2300 doubled tooth damage in lab tests, with increased root corrosion and altered serration affecting these critical survival weapons for apex predators already facing prey shortages from overfishing. | The Guardian - MARINE BIOLOGY - Ocean Acidification
Grégoire Hug 🇫🇷 argues that the remote work debate masks a deeper crisis of workplace meaning, with 59% of workers disengaged and 60% of young employees ready to leave within 5 years. The WeeFin CEO advocates for more horizontal organisations centered on company mission, where management inspires rather than imposes, citing Patagonia and Alan as models combining economic performance with positive impact. | Maddyness - MANAGEMENT - Future of Work
Anna Heim 🇫🇷 reveals strong investor appetite across Europe with 12 new unicorns in H1 2025, signaling "hot" sectors from biotech and defense tech to "AI, AI, and AI." The funding momentum shows diverse investor confidence spanning Swedish coding startup Lovable's record $1.8B valuation in 8 months, London biotech Verdiva Bio's massive $410M Series A, and Spotify co-founder's Neko Health securing $260M for preventative health tech. | TechCrunch - STARTUPS - European Investment Trends
John Thornhill 🇬🇧 warns that AI's "golden age" historically requires a crash first, citing MIT research showing 95% of companies getting zero returns from generative AI investments despite $750B spending by Big Tech this year. Drawing on Carlota Perez's technological revolution cycles, he argues we're in a manic installation phase with productive bubbles funding infrastructure, but warns that software-driven globalisation amplifies both opportunities and risks before the inevitable market correction. | Financial Times - TECHNOLOGY - AI
Graph of the week
This edition's graph from Carta data reveals a dramatic contraction in venture capital funding, with 2025 YTD tracking 7% below 2024 at just $46.9B through mid-year. The annual progression shows funding has collapsed 80% from the $229.7B peak of 2021, settling into what appears to be a post-bubble equilibrium around $90-100B annually. Deal volume tells an equally stark story, plummeting from 8,166 rounds in 2021 to just 2,248 in 2025 YTD, indicating extreme investor selectivity has replaced the pandemic-era capital abundance. The data suggests the venture ecosystem is approaching a new floor after four years of steady decline, with current funding levels resembling pre-pandemic norms but with the heightened due diligence standards forged during the downturn.
