Andrew Eil runs an independent practice as a deeptech climate and risk solutions investor, advisor to early-stage companies and corporates, and deal scout for venture investors. He has built an investment portfolio of 25 startups, a network of 300 VC firms and offices, and deal-sharing with 400 investors.  

Early-Stage Investing

Andrew hews to a thematic focus on B2B adaptation & resilience, resource efficiency, and risk management solutions to protect against enterprise vulnerabilities to disruption, loss, liability, and obsolescence. In the early-stage technology commercialization space, he sources, diligences, advises, and makes investments in pre-seed, seed stage, and series A startups. His investment thesis, detailed in a recent article, centers on hardware and deeptech companies with differentiated technology on the cusp of market entry and scaling that address material operational and financial climate-related threats. He invests in verticals such as water security, HVAC and cooling, risk analytics and insurance, waste reprocessing and valorization, supply chain and operational resiliency, agrifood biotechnology, wildfire risk management, and methane and refrigerant emissions abatement.

Informed by 20 years of experience in technology commercialization, development finance, international affairs, and climate risk, Andrew has built a portfolio of 25 early-stage investee and advisee companies since first entering the VC space in 2022. He invests in six to ten companies annually out of the hundreds of deals that he screens from many professional and industry sources. He sources deals for his network of institutional VCs, family offices, angel investors, and early-stage tech ecosystem partners, drawing on his own portfolio companies, client startups, and companies in late-stage due diligence. 

Advisory Services & Deal Scouting

Side by side with his investing and deal sourcing activities, Andrew manages a consulting practice in climate risk, technology, and capital markets intelligence. On the enterprise side, he advises startups and mature companies on core priorities such as go-to-market strategy, partnerships, business development, operations, and fundraising for equity capital as well as debt, awards, and grants. In support of these objectives, he leverages partnerships with leading angel networks, vendor marketplaces, grantwriters, fractional CXOs, event organizers, and media outlets. His most active startup advisory engagements (all paired with investments) include Mothership Materials (organic waste upcycling/biomanufacturing); Aquaria (backup/off-grid water); Helix Earth, ThermoShade, and MIMiC Systems (thermal comfort solutions); CLAIM8 (property risk and insurance claims); Unibaio and XTRIUM (supply chain resiliency); and Athena Intelligence (wildfire risk).

On the capital side, Andrew’s clients include institutional asset managers, family offices, incubators & accelerators, impact financers, and smaller-scale investors. Advisory services encompass sourcing and vetting investments in early-stage private markets; navigating emerging technology solutions in the risk management and resiliency solutions marketplace; offering platform support to VC portfolio companies; managing and mitigating climate-related risk; and developing investment strategies informed by geostrategic climate- and weather-related dynamics. Andrew is a deal scout for Alumni Ventures, the most active VC firm in North America by deal count, and a venture advisor to Anthropocene Ventures, an early-stage climate tech VC. Since October 2024, he has hosted briefings for investors showcasing founders from 15 startups, mobilizing more than $3M for them in angel investment capital. In summer 2025, he launched a partnership as the climatetech deal scout for the SPV syndicate platform Play Money. Andrew has since led or catalyzed eight angel investing campaigns with Play Money.

Professional Background

Andrew’s career of 20+ years spans diplomacy, international development, climate and energy policy, finance, strategy consulting, entrepreneurship, and risk management. His subject matter expertise is centered on technology commercialization, climate change adaptation and resilience, insurance and risk transfer, resource use efficiency and innovation, catalytic capital, geopolitics and diplomacy, scenario analysis, and risk-related strategy. He is a widely published thought leader and speaker on climate and energy issues. He serves on the steering committee of the Larta Institute’s Venture Fellows program and is a volunteer mentor for Third Derivative, a leading climate-focused deeptech accelerator.

From early 2022 until November 2024, Andrew founded and led the climate risk practice in North America at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), where he advised banks, insurance carriers, and other financial institutions. From 2018 until the end of 2021, Andrew was one of four partner-owners of Climate Finance Advisors, a boutique consulting firm focused on policy and investment solutions for commercialization and capital mobilization supporting nascent environmental technologies. Andrew joined CFA as a startup, which he co-managed and whose team he helped grow to a size of 20 until its acquisition by WSP.

Andrew has worked in international climate policy and markets for more than 15 years with the U.S. Department of State’s climate change office (2010-14), where he oversaw a $75 million portfolio of foreign assistance programs and spearheaded the launch of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. He has extensively worked for and advised the World Bank Group, UN agencies, impact investors, and private clients such as Bloomberg LLP.

He has lived and worked abroad for nearly six years in Kazakhstan, Russia, China, and France. He has a BA in Russian history and literature from Harvard, an MPA in public affairs and development economics from Princeton, and certificates in VC & private equity and sustainable finance from Columbia. A past Fulbright fellow (Russia, 2002-03) and Critical Language Study fellow (China, 2009), Andrew is the holder of the GARP SCR (Sustainability and Climate Risk) certificate and is a level II candidate of the CFA.

For more details, please see Andrew’s LinkedIn page.