A conversation with Sonam Velani, Co-Founder of Streetlife Ventures
Adaptation Tech Is No Longer Optional — It’s Urgent Infrastructure
For decades, climate investment has focused almost exclusively on mitigation — solar panels, EVs, carbon markets — in a race to lower emissions before disaster strikes. But that future is no longer hypothetical. Disasters are here and now, and capital markets are finally waking up to a sobering fact: even the most ambitious decarbonization won’t stop the subway from flooding tomorrow.
That’s where Streetlife Ventures enters. Led by Sonam Velani and her partner Laura Fox, the firm is among the very few VCs explicitly building around climate adaptation infrastructure — a space that still receives just a fraction of global climate finance. Velani has worked as an infrastructure finance specialist at Goldman Sachs and The World Bank, a Senior Policy Advisor at the New York City Mayor’s Office, and a startup operator at Zipline. Spending her career connecting the dots between cities, climate, and capital, she is hell bent on closing this gap.
From machine learning tools that map flood risk to hydrogel cooling fabrics for outdoor laborers, Velani’s thesis is simple: “Climate change is already reshaping cities, work, and daily life. The most valuable companies of the next decade won’t just decarbonize the future — they’ll help us survive the present.”
Net Zero Insights sat down with Velani to discuss how adaptation tech is misunderstood, where AI is finally finding its climate edge, and what it takes to turn a resilience thesis into a real venture portfolio.
1｜Why Adaptation Is Venture’s Blind Spot — and a Business Opportunity
Net Zero Insights: You’ve said adaptation is where capital markets are missing the biggest near-term opportunity. Can you explain?
Sonam Velani: Right now, over 93% of all climate finance goes into mitigation — into emissions reduction, renewables, carbon capture. That’s important. But adaptation is a huge blind spot. Just look at New York: subways constantly flooded, heatwaves killing more people than any other climate-related disaster. The climate isn’t a distant scenario — it’s disrupting cities today.
We tend to think about adaptation in three broad buckets. First, we must understand the risk — and that’s where tools like AI and machine learning really shine, helping cities, utilities, and corporates figure out which of their assets are vulnerable and where to act. Second, there’s the question of physically doing something about the risk once you know about it — this is often where new materials or physical products come in, like cooling fabrics or flood-proofing solutions. And finally, there’s everything that happens in between — the financial and social tools that help people stay protected while longer-term fixes are being put in place. Insurance is a big one there.
Take Rhizome, for example. They use AI and ML to help utilities make smarter infrastructure decisions — whether to fortify a substation in New York against flood risk or bury a power line in California to protect against wildfire spread. In Texas’ largest utility, Rhizome’s predictive model identified which circuits were at highest risk of impact by storms – and the utility reduced storm-induced power outages by 72% by taking proactive steps to harden vulnerable infrastructure. It’s not just about identifying risk — it’s about optimizing capital deployment in the face of that risk.
2｜The Deployment Edge: Why Adaptation Startups Need Field Validation Early
Net Zero Insights: Some say adaptation is too niche or slow to scale. What’s your response?
Velani: That argument doesn’t hold up. Our investments focus on products with wide applicability — like Eztia, a materials company that has developed a hydrogel product that provides evaporative cooling. You dip it in water, wear it on your skin, and suddenly it’s usable in construction, logistics, agriculture — anywhere heat is a threat.
Heat isn’t theoretical. It’s the deadliest climate impact today, and it’s crushing productivity. When it hits 90°F, outdoor work capacity drops by up to 50%. Eztia’s technology is not just about comfort — it’s about labor economics and safety.
We also do deep due diligence when exploring these types of products — we’ve spoken with six or seven research institutions to vet Eztia’s material performance. And many of our founders have international networks —Eztia’s co-founder is manufacturing the product with a government-backed research institution in Taiwan and selling to the Singapore PSA operating the world’s largest transshipment hub, where demand for cooling is constant year-round.
Net Zero Insights: How do you evaluate AI-driven adaptation products, beyond the buzz?
Velani: We stay focused on commercially useful AI. For example, Rhizome’s value lies in how it helps utility companies prioritize risk and optimize capital spending — not in model sophistication alone.
I think there’s been an overhype around AI valuations, especially in climate and energy. Our lens is always: does it make adaptation more actionable? More fundable? More measurable? AI is a tool, not a moat.
Final Word: Capital’s Role Is Shifting from Innovation to Protection
Net Zero Insights: Where does adaptation VC go from here?
Velani: We’re entering a new era where capital is no longer just funding innovation — it’s funding protection. That means hard infrastructure, yes, but also smarter planning, real-time response, and better outcomes in a volatile world.
It’s not charity. It’s strategic. We’re talking about billions of people and trillions in assets at risk. The investors who understand that first will build the next generation of infrastructure — one that’s designed for the world we actually live in.
This conversation was produced by Net Zero Insights in collaboration with Greennex Global, a New York–based investment intelligence and capital structuring platform bridging global innovation and real-world deployment.
