Hilary Flynn, Managing Director, Investments at MassCEC joined VIA for a chat about policy, investment, and climate in latest VIA Visionaries interview

We created the VIA Visionaries interview series to showcase exceptional people in both the energy and technology spaces. These individuals share a common mission with VIA of making our communities cleaner, safer, and more equitable. 

For our latest interview, we were privileged to spend time with Hilary Flynn.
Hilary has such passion and drive when it comes to commercializing new technologies, investments, and policy development, that we couldn’t wait to ask her to share her wealth of knowledge with our VIA Visionaries followers. 

Here is a little background on Hilary. 

Hilary has had a remarkable career spanning policy and research at major think tanks and analyst firms and technology innovation and investment at a global utility. To break down her exceptional career, she has been with MassCEC as Managing Director, Investments for nearly two years. In her role, she oversees the 2030 fund, an early stage climate tech venture capital. Before joining MassCEC, Hilary was with National Grid for six years in different capacities – from identifying innovation to her latest role as Head of US Offshore Wind and Vice President of NG-RWE JV. Prior to National Grid, Hilary was a consultant for major research firms, working closely with renewable energy, utilities, and policy.

With a packed house at our headquarters in Somerville, which included VIA team members visiting from around the globe, our CEO, Colin Gounden, chatted with Hilary for over 30 minutes on a live streamed event. Colin asked Hilary questions about why she chose energy, the mission at MassCEC, and what role state organizations like MassCEC play in climate change mitigation and clean energy transition. 

Through the conversation, you can tell just how proud Hilary is of the work MassCEC is doing, so when Colin asked Hilary, “There are so many programs at MassCEC. Is there one in particular that is a favorite, or you really want others to consider more actively?”, we enjoyed hearing her response, here is a snippet:

“My program, which is terrific, it’s called the 2030 fund. It’s an investment fund that we launched last year. It’s $50 million, effectively a tripling of the budget from what we had historically. We make equity investments and provide venture debt to startups. I think many people who know us know us for the grant program or some of our education programs, and they’re not always aware that we also act like a venture capital firm, and in a good way. We call ourselves public strategic, so we’re very friendly, but we’re unique. There aren’t too many states that have such a venture capital fund, particularly one for climate. So, we make early-stage investments in pre-seed, series A climate tech companies…”

To hear the entire response and the full interview, watch the video below! 

We’re thrilled to share that we have quite the line up of special guests for our VIA Visionaries exclusive interview series. Ann Davlin of Constellation, the largest producer of clean, carbon-free energy, will join us for a live-stream chat about the Future of Sustainability and Climate Solutions on Thursday, November 2nd at 2:30PM ET. Be sure to follow VIA’s website and social media (LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Threads) for the latest on this series and more!